Father Stafford

Sir Roderick Ayre Inspects Mr. Morewood's Masterpiece.

About a fortnight later than the last recorded incident two men were smoking on the lawn at Millstead Manor. One was Morewood; the other had arrived only the day before and was the Sir Roderick Ayre to whom reference has been made.

"Upon my word, Morewood," said Sir Roderick, as the painter sat down by him, "one can't go anywhere without meeting you!"

"That's since you took to intellectual company," said Morewood, grinning.

"I haven't taken to intellectual company," said Sir Roderick, with languid indignation.

"In the general upheaval, intellectual company has risen in the scale."

"And so has at last come up to your pinnacle?"

"And so has reached me, where I have been for centuries."

"A sort of perpetual dove on Ararat?"

"My dear Morewood, I am told you know everything except the Bible. Why choose your allusions from the one unfamiliar source?"

"And how do you like your new neighbor?"

"What new neighbor?"

"Intellect."

"Oh! well, as personified in you it's a not unwholesome astringent. But we may take an overdose."

"Depends on the capacity of the constitution, of course," said Morewood.

"One objectionable quality it has," pursued Sir Roderick, apparently unheedful.

"Yes?"

"A disposition toward what boys call 'scoring.' That will, no doubt, be eradicated as it rises more in society. Apropos, what are you doing down here?"

"As an artist, I study your insolence professionally, Ayre, and it doesn't annoy me. I came down here to do nothing. I have stayed to paint Stafford."

"Ah! is Stafford then a professional saint?"

"He's an uncommon fine fellow. You're not fit to black his boots."

"I am not fit to black anybody's boots," responded Sir Roderick. "It's the other way. What's he doing down here?"

"I don't know. Says he's writing a book. Do you know Lady Claudia well?"

"Yes. Known her since she was a child."

"She seems uncommonly appreciative."

"Of Stafford?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well! it's her way. It always has been the way of the Territons. They only began, you know, about three hundred years ago, and ever since—"

"Oh, I don't want their history—a lot of scoundrels, no doubt, like all your old families. Only—I say, Ayre, I should like to show you a head of Stafford I've done."

"I won't buy it!" said Sir Roderick, with affected trepidation.

"You be damned!" said Morewood. "But I should like to hear what you think of it."

"What do he and the rest of them think?"

"I haven't shown it to any one."

"Why not?"

"Wait till you've seen it."

"I should think Stafford would make rather a good head. He's got just that—"

"Hush! Here he comes!"

As he spoke, Stafford and Claudia came up the drive and emerged on to the lawn. They did not see the others and appeared to be deep in conversation. Stafford was talking vehemently and Claudia listening with a look of amused mutiny on her face.

"He's sworn off, hasn't he?" asked Ayre.

"Yes."

"She doesn't care for him?"

"I don't think so; but a man can't tell."

"Nonsense!" said Ayre. "What's Eugene up to?"

"Oh, you know he's booked."

"Kate Bernard?"

"Yes."

"Tell you what, Morewood, I'll lay you—"

"No, you won't. Come and see the picture. It's the finest thing—in its way—I ever did."

"Going to exhibit it?"

"I'm going to work up and exhibit another I've done of him, not this one; at least, I'm afraid he won't stand this one."

"Gad! Have you painted him with horns and a tail?"

Whereto Morewood answered only:

"Come and see."

As they went in, they met Eugene, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, looking immensely bored.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" said he. "Excuse the mode of address, but I've not seen a soul all the morning, and thought I must have dropped down somewhere in Africa. It's monstrous! I ask about ten people to my house, and I never have a soul to speak to!"

"Where's Miss Bernard?" asked Ayre.

"Kate is learning constitutional principles from Haddington in the shrubbery. Lady Claudia is learning sacerdotal principles from Stafford in the shrubbery. My mother is learning equine principles from Bob Territon in the stables. You are learning immoral principles from Morewood on the lawn. I don't complain, but is there anything a man can do?"

"Yes, there's a picture to be seen—Morewood's latest."

"Good!"

"I don't know that I shall show it to Lane."

"Oh, get out!" said Eugene. "I shall summon the servants to my aid. Who's it of?"

"Stafford," said Ayre.

"The Pope in full canonicals?"

"All right, Lane. But you're a friend of his, and you mayn't like it."

They entered the billiard-room, a long building that ran out from the west wing of the house. In the extreme end of it Morewood had extemporized a studio, attracted by the good light.

"Give me a good top-light," he had said, "and I wouldn't change places with an arch-angel!"

"Your lights, top or otherwise, are not such," Eugene remarked, "as to make it likely the berth will be offered you."

"This picture is, I understand, Eugene, a stunner. Give us chairs and some brandy and soda and trot it out," said Ayre.

Morewood was unmoved by their frivolity. He tugged at his ragged red beard for a moment or two while they were settling themselves.

"I'll show you this first," he said, taking up one of the canvases that leant against the wall.

It was a beautiful sketch of a half-length figure, and represented Stafford in the garb of a monk, gazing up with eager eyes, full of the vision of the Eternal City beyond the skies. It was the face of a devotee and a visionary, and yet it was full of strength and resolution; and there was in it the look of a man who had put aside all except the service and the contemplation of the Divine.

Ayre forgot to sneer, and Eugene murmured:

"Glorious! What a subject! And, old fellow, what an artist!"

"That is good," said Morewood quietly. "It's fine, but as a matter of painting the other is still better. I caught him looking like that one morning. He came out before breakfast, very early, into the garden. I was out there, but he didn't see me, and he stood looking up like that for ever so long, his lips just parted and his eyes straining through the veil, as you see that. It may be all nonsense, but—fine, isn't it?"

The two men nodded.

"Now for the other," said Ayre. "By Jove! I feel as if I'd been in church."

"The other I got only three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul Pry,—we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,—and I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better see it first."

He took another and smaller picture and placed it on the easel, standing for a moment between it and the onlookers and studying it closely. Then he stepped aside in silence.

It was merely a head—nothing more—standing out boldly from a dark background. The face was again Stafford's, but the presentment differed strangely. It was still beautiful; it had even a beauty the other had not, the beauty of youth and passion. The devotee was gone; in his place was a face that, in spite of the ascetic cast of feature, was so lighted up with the fire of love and longing that it might have stood for a Leander or a Romeo. It expressed an eager yearning, that made it seem to be craning out of the picture in the effort to reach that unknown object on which the eyes were fixed with such devouring passion.

The men sat looking at it in amazement. Eugene was half angry, half alarmed. Ayre was closely studying the picture, his old look of cynical amusement struggling with a surprise which it was against his profession to admit. They forgot to praise the picture; but Morewood was well content with their tacit homage.

"The finest thing I ever did—on my life; one of the finest things any one ever did," he murmured; "and I can't show it!"

"No," said Eugene.

Ayre rose and took his stand before the picture. Then he got a chair, choosing the lowest he could find, and sat down, sitting well back. This attitude brought him exactly under the gaze of the eyes.

"Is it your diabolic fancy," he said, "or did you honestly copy it?"

"I never struck closer to what I saw," the painter replied. "It's not my doing; he looked like that."

"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"

"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."

"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.

The others looked keenly at him for a moment.

"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him every day."

"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.

"No."

"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they noticed nothing.

"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.

Morewood's face was a study.

"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."

"I'll give you a thousand pounds for it," said Eugene.

"What would you do with it?"

"Burn it."

"Then you shouldn't have it for ten thousand."

"I thought you'd say that. But he mustn't see it."

"Why, Lane, you're as bad as a child. It's a man in love, that's all."

"If he saw it," said Eugene, "he'd hang himself."

"Oh, gently!" said Ayre. "If you ask me, I expect Stafford will pretty soon get beyond any surprise at the revelation. He must walk his path, like all of us. It can't matter to you, you know," he added, with a sharp glance.

"No, it can't matter to me," said Eugene steadily.

"Put it away, Morewood, and come out of doors. Perhaps you'd better not leave it about, at present at any rate."

Morewood took down the picture and placed it in a large portfolio, which he locked, and accompanied Ayre. Eugene made no motion to come with them, and they left him sitting there.

"The atmosphere," said Sir Roderick, looking up into the clear summer sky, "is getting thundery and complicated. I hate complications! They're a bore! I think I shall go."

"I shan't. It will be interesting."

"Perhaps you're right. I'll stay a little while."

"Ah! here you are. I've been looking for somebody to amuse me."

The speaker was Claudia, looking very fresh and cool in her soft white dress.

"What have you done with the Pope?" asked Ayre.

"He gave me to understand he had wasted enough time on me, and went in to write."

"I should think he was right," said Sir Roderick.

"I dare say," said Claudia carelessly.

Her conscience was evidently quite at ease; but they did not know whether this meant that her actions had deserved no blame. However, they were neither of them men to judge such a case as hers harshly.

"If I were fifteen years younger," said Ayre, "I would waste all my time on you."

"Why, you're only about forty," said Claudia. "That's not too old."

"Good!" said he, smiling. "Life in the old dog yet, eh? But go in and see Lane. He's in the billiard-room, thinking over his sins and getting low-spirited."

"And I shall be a change?"

"I don't know about that. Perhaps he's a homoeopathist."

"I hate you!" said Claudia, with a very kind glance, as she pursued her way in the direction indicated.

"She means no harm," said Morewood.

"But she may do the devil of a lot. We can't help it, can we?"

"No—not our business if we could," said Morewood.

Claudia paused for a moment at the door. Eugene was still sitting with his head on his hand.

"It's very odd," thought she. "What's he looking at the easel for? There's nothing on it!"

Then she began to sing. Eugene looked up.

"Is it you, Lady Claudia?"

"Yes. Why are you moping here?"

"Where's Stafford?"

"Everybody," said Claudia impatiently, throwing her hat, and herself after it, on a lounge, "asks me where Father Stafford is. I don't know, Mr. Lane; and what's more, at this moment I don't care. Have you nothing better than that to say to me when I come to look for you?"

Eugene pulled himself together. Tragedy airs would be insufferable.

"True, most beauteous damsel!" he said. "I am remiss. For the purposes of the moment, hang Stafford! What shall we do?"

She got up and came close to him.

"Mr. Lane," she whispered, "what do you think there is in the stable?"

"I know what there isn't: that's a horse fit to ride."

"A libel! a libel! But there is [in a still lower whisper] a sociable."

"A what?"

"A sociable."

"Do you mean a tricycle?"

"Yes—for two."

"Oho!" said Eugene, gently chuckling.

"Wouldn't it be fun?"

"On the road?"

"N—no, perhaps not; round the park."

"Hush! S'death! if Kate saw us! Where is she?"

"I saw her last with Mr. Haddington."

"In the scheme of creation everything has its use," replied Eugene tranquilly. "Haddington supplies a felt want."

"Be quiet. But will you?"

"Yes; come along. Be swift and silent."

"I must go and put on an old frock."

"All right; be quick."

"What is the use?" Eugene pondered; "I can't have her, and Stafford may as well—if he will. Will he, I wonder? And would she? Oh, Lord! what a nuisance they are! By Jove! I should like to see Kate's face if she spots us."

A few minutes later the strange and unedifying sight of Lady Claudia Territon and Mr. Lane, mounted on a very rickety old "sociable," presented itself to the gaping gaze of several laborers in the park. Claudia was in her most boisterous spirits; Eugene, by one of the quick transitions of his nature, was hardly less elate. Up-hill they toiled and down-hill they raced, getting, as the manner of "cyclists" is, very warm and rather oily. But retribution lagged not. Down a steep hill they came, round a sharp turn they went, and, alas, over into a ditch they fell. This was bad enough, but in the calm seclusion of a garden seat, perched on a knoll just above them, the sinners, as they rose, dirty but unhurt, beheld Miss Bernard! For a moment all was consternation. What would she say?

It was a curious thing, but Kate seemed as embarrassed as themselves, and she said nothing except:

"Oh, I hope you're not hurt!" and said this in a hasty way and with ostentatious amiability.

Eugene was surprised. But as his eyes wandered, they fell on Haddington, and that rising politician held awkwardly in his hand, and was trying to convey behind his back, what looked very like a lady's glove. Now Miss Bernard had only one glove on.

"The battery is spiked," he whispered triumphantly. "Come along, Lady Claudia."

Claudia hadn't seen what Eugene had, but she obeyed, and off they went again, airily waving their hands.

"What's the matter with her?" she asked.

Eugene was struggling with laughter.

"Didn't you see? Haddington had her glove! Splendid!"

Claudia, regardless of safety, turned for an instant, a flushed, smiling face to him. He was about to speak, but she turned away again, exclaiming:

"Quick! I've promised to meet Father Stafford at twelve, and I mustn't keep him waiting. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Eugene was checked; Claudia saw it. What she thought is not revealed, but they returned home in somewhat gloomy silence. And it is a comfort to the narrator, and it is to be hoped to the reader, to think that Mr. Eugene Lane got something besides pleasure out of his discreditable performance and his lamentable want of proper feeling.

How Three Gentlemen Acted for the Best.

The schemers schemed and the waiters upon events waited with considerable patience, but although the days wore on, the situation showed little signs of speedy development. Matters were in fact in a rather puzzling position. The friendship and intimacy between Claudia and Stafford continued to increase. Eugene, whether in penitence or in pique, had turned with renewed zeal to his proper duties, and was no longer content to allow Kate to be monopolized by Haddington. The latter's attentions had indeed been in danger of becoming too marked, and it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to attribute Kate's apparent avoidance of them as much to considerations of expediency as of principle. At the same time, there was no coolness between Eugene and Haddington, and when his guest presented a valid excuse and proposed departure, Eugene met the suggestion with an obviously sincere opposition. Sir Roderick really could not make out what was going on. Now Sir Roderick disliked being puzzled; it conveyed a reflection on his acuteness, and he therefore was a sharer in the perturbation of mind that evidently afflicted some of his companions, in spite of their decorous behavior. But contentment was not wanting in some hearts. Morewood was happy in the pursuit of his art and in arguments with Stafford; and Bob Territon had found refuge in an energetic attempt to organize and train a Manor team to do battle with the village cricket club, headed as it had been for thirty years past by the Rector. Moreover, Stafford himself still seemed tranquil. It would have been difficult for most men to fail to understand their true position in such a case more fully than he, in spite of his usual penetration of vision, had succeeded in doing. But he was now in a strange country, and the landmarks of feeling whereby the experienced traveler on such paths can learn and note, even if he cannot check, his descent, were to Stafford unmeaning and empty of warning. Of course, he knew he liked Claudia's society; he found her talk at once a change, a rest, and a stimulus; he had even become aware that of all the people at the Manor, except his old friend and host, she had for him the most interest and attraction; perhaps he had even suffered at times that sense of vacancy of all the chairs when her chair was vacant that should have told him of his state if anything would. But he did not see; he was blind in this matter, even as, say, Ayre or Morewood would have proved blind if called upon to study and describe the mental process of a religious conversation. He was yet far from realizing that an influence had entered his life in force strong enough to contend with that which had so long ruled him with undivided sway. It was the part of a friend to hope and try that he might go with his own heart yet a secret to him. So hoped Eugene. But Eugene, unnerved by self-suspicion, would not lift a finger to hasten his friend's departure, lest he should seem to himself, or be without perceiving it even himself, alert to save his friend, only because his friend's salvation would be to his own comfort.

Sir Roderick Ayre, however, was not restrained by Eugene's scruples nor inspired by Eugene's devotion to Stafford. Stafford interested him, but he was not his friend, and Ayre did not understand, or, if truth be told, appreciate the almost reverential attitude which Eugene, usually so very devoid of reverence, adopted toward him. Ayre thought Stafford's vow nonsense, and that if he was in love with Claudia Territon there was no harm done.

"Many people have been," he said, "and many will be, before the little witch grows old and—no, by Jove! she'll never grow ugly!"

Trivial as the matter seemed, looked at in this light, it had yet enough of human interest about it to decide him to leave the grouse alone, and wait patiently for the partridges at Millstead. After all, he had shot grouse and most other things for thirty years; and, as he said, "The parson was a change, and the house deuced comfortable, and old Eugene a good fellow."

Now it came to pass one day that the devil, having a spare hour on his hands, and remembering that he had often met with a hospitable reception from Sir Roderick, to say nothing of having a bowing acquaintance with Morewood, looked in at the Manor, and finding his old quarters at Sir Roderick's swept and garnished, incontinently took up his abode there, and proceeded to look round for some suitable occupation. When this momentous but invisible event accomplished itself, Sir Roderick was outwardly engaged in the innocent and aimless pursuit of knocking the billiard balls about and listening absently to a discourse from Morewood on the essential truths which he (Morewood) had grasped and presented alone of modern artists. The theme was not exhilarating, and Sir Roderick's tenant soon grew very tired of it; the presentment of truth, indeed, essential or otherwise, not being a matter that concerned him. But in the course of an inspection of Sir Roderick's consciousness, he had come across something that appeared worth following up, and toward it he proceeded to direct his entertainer's conversation.

"I say, Morewood," said Ayre, breaking in on the discourse, "do you think it's fair to keep that fellow Stafford in the dark?"

"Is he in the dark?"

"It's a queer thing, but he is. I never knew a man who was in love before without knowing it,—they say women are that way,—but then I never met a 'Father' before."

"What do you propose, since you insist on gossiping?"

"It isn't gossip; it's Christian feeling. Some one ought to tell the poor beggar."

"Perhaps you'd like to."

"I should, but it would seem like a liberty, and I never take liberties. You do constantly, so you might as well take this one."

"I like that! Why, the man's a stranger! If he ought to be told at all, Lane's the man to do it."

"Yes, but you see, Lane—"

"That's quite true; I forgot. But isn't he better left alone to get over it?"

Sir Roderick, unprejudiced, might have conceded the point. But the prompter intervened.

"What I'm thinking about is this: is it fair to her? I don't say she's in love with him, but she admires him immensely. They're always together, and—well, it's plain what's likely enough to happen. If it does, what will be said? Who'll believe he did it unconsciously? And if he breaks her heart, how is it better because he did it unconsciously?"

"You are unusually benevolent," said Morewood dryly.

"Hang it! a man has some feelings."

"You're a humbug, Ayre!"

"Never mind what I am. You won't tell him?"

"No."

"It would be a very interesting problem."

"It would."

"That vow of his is all nonsense, ain't it?"

"Utter nonsense!"

"Why shouldn't he have his chance of being happy in a reasonable way? I shouldn't wonder if she took him."

"No more should I."

"Upon my soul, I believe it's a duty! I say, Morewood, do you think he'd see it for himself from the picture?"

"Of course he would. No one could help it."

"Will you let him see it?"

Morewood took a turn or two up and down, tugging his beard. The issue was doubtful. A certain auditor of the conversation, perceiving this, hastily transferred himself from one interlocutor to the other.

"I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll let him see it if Lane agrees. I'll leave it to Lane."

"Rather rough on Lane, isn't it?"

"A little strong emotion of any kind won't do Lane any harm."

"Perhaps not. We will train our young friend's mind to cope with moral problems. He'll never get on in the world nowadays unless he can do that. It's now part of a gentleman's—still more of a lady's—education."

Eugene was clearly wanted. By some agency, into which it is needless to inquire, though we may have suspicions, at that moment Eugene strolled into the billiard-room.

"We have a little question to submit to you, my dear fellow," said Ayre blandly.

Eugene looked at him suspiciously. He had been a good deal worried the last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived him of the sense of unmerited suffering—a most valuable consolation in time of trouble.

"It's about Stafford. You remember the head of him Morewood did, and the conclusion we drew from it—or, rather, it forced upon us?"

Eugene nodded, instinctively assuming his most nonchalant air.

"We think he's a bad case. What think you?"

"I agree—at least, I suppose I do. I haven't thought much about it."

Ayre thought the indifference overdone, but he took no notice of it.

"We are inclined to think he ought to be shown that picture. I am clear about it; Morewood doubts. And we are going to refer it to you."

"You'd better leave me out."

"Not at all. You're a friend of his, known him all your life, and you'll know best what will be for his good."

"If you insist on asking me, I think you had better let it alone."

"Wait a minute. Why do you say that?"

"Because it will be a shock to him."

"No doubt, at first. He's got some silly notion in his head about not marrying, and about its being sinful to fall in love, and all, that."

"It won't make him happier to be refused."

Ayre leant forward in his chair, and said: "How do you know she'll refuse him?"

"I don't know. How should I know?"

"Do you think it likely?"

"Is that a fair question?" asked Morewood.

"Perfectly," said Eugene, with an expressionless face. "But it's one I have no means of answering."

"He's plucky," thought Ayre. "Would you give the same answer you gave just now if you thought she'd take him?"

It was certainly hard on Eugene. Was he bound, against even a tolerably strong feeling of his own, to give Stafford every chance? It is not fair to a man to make him a judge where he is in truth a party. Ayre had no mercy for him.

"For the sake of a trumpery pledge is he to throw away his own happiness—and mark you, Lane, perhaps hers?"

Eugene did not wince.

"If there's a chance of success, he ought to be given the opportunity of exercising his own judgment," he said quietly. "It would distress him immensely, but we should have no right to keep it from him. And I suppose there's always a chance of success."

"Go and get the picture, Morewood," said Sir Roderick. Then, when the painter was looking in the portfolio, he said abruptly to Eugene:

"You could say nothing else."

"No. That's why you asked me, I suppose. I hope I'm an interesting subject. You dig pretty deep."

"Serves you right!" said Ayre composedly. "Why were you ever such an ass?"

"God knows!" groaned Eugene.

Morewood returned.

"He's due here in ten minutes to sit to me. Are you going to stay?"

"No. You be doing something else, and let that thing stand on the easel."

"Pleasant for me, isn't it?" asked Morewood.

"Are you ashamed of yourself for snatching it?"

"Not a bit."

"All right, then; what's the matter? Come along, Eugene. After all, you know you'll like showing it. For an outsider, like yourself, it's really a deuced clever little bit. Perhaps they will make you an Associate if Stafford will let you show it."

Morewood ignored the taunt, and sat down by the window on pretense of touching up a sketch. He had not been there long when he heard Stafford come in, and became conscious that he had caught sight of the picture. He did not look up, and heard no sound. A long pause followed. Then he felt a strong grip on his shoulder, and Stafford whispered:

"It is my face?"

"You see it is."

"You did it?"

"Yes. I ought to beg your pardon," and he looked up. Stafford was pale as death, and trembling.

"When?"

"A few days ago."

"On your oath—no, you don't believe that—on your honor, is it truth?"

"Yes, it is."

"You saw it—just as it is there?"

"Yes, it is exact. I had no right to take it or to show it you."

"What does that matter, man? Do you think I care about that? But—yes, it is true. God help me!"

"We have seen it, you know. It was time you saw it."

"Time, indeed!"

"Where's the harm?" asked Morewood, in a rough effort at comfort.

"The harm? But you don't understand. It is the face of a beast!"

"My dear fellow, that's stuff! It's only the face of a lover."

Stafford looked at him in a dazed way.

"I wish you'd let me go back to my room, Morewood, and give me that picture. No—I won't hurt it."

"Take it, then, and pull yourself together. What's the harm, again I say? And if she loves you—"

"What?" he cried eagerly. Then, checking himself, "Hold your peace, in Heaven's name, and let me go!"

He went his way, and Morewood leaped from the window to find the other two. He found them, but not alone. Ayre was discoursing to Claudia and appeared entirely oblivious of the occurrence which he had precipitated. Eugene was walking up and down with Kate Bernard. It is necessary to listen to what the latter couple were saying.

"This is sad news, Kate," Eugene said. "Why are you going to leave us?"

"My aunt wants me to go with her to Buxton in September, and we're going to have a few days on the river before that."

"Then we shall not meet again for some time?"

"No. Of course I shall write to you."

"Thank you—I hope you will. You've had a pleasant time, I hope? Who are to be your river party?"

"Oh, just ourselves and one or two girls and men. Lord Rickmansworth is to be there a day or two, if he can. And—oh, yes, Mr. Haddington, I think."

"Isn't Haddington staying here?"

"I don't know. I understood not. So your party will break up," Kate went on. "Of course, Claudia can't stay when I go."

"Why not?"

"Really, Eugene, it would be hardly the thing."

"I believe my mother is not thinking of going."

"Do you mean you will ask Claudia?"

"I certainly cannot ask her to curtail her visit."

"Anyhow, Father Stafford goes soon, and she won't stay then."

This last shaft accomplished Miss Bernard's presumable object. Eugene lost his temper.

"Forgive me for saying so, Kate," he said, "but really at times your mind seems to me positively vulgar."

"I am not going to quarrel. I am quite aware of what you want."

"What's that?"

"An opportunity for quarreling."

"If that's all, I might have found several. But come, Kate, it's no use, and not very dignified, to squabble. We haven't got on so well as we might. But I dare say it's my fault."

"Do you want to throw me over?" asked Kate scornfully.

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk like a breach-of-promise plaintiff! I am and always have been perfectly ready to fulfill my engagement. But you don't make it easy for me. Unless you 'throw me over,' as you are pleased to phrase it, things will remain as they are."

"I have been taught to consider an engagement as binding as a marriage."

"No warrant for such a view in Holy Scripture."

"And whatever my feelings may be—and you can hardly wonder if, after your conduct, they are not what they were—I shall consider myself bound."

"I have never proposed anything else."

"Your conduct with Claudia—"

"I must ask you to leave Lady Claudia alone. If you come to that—but there, I was just going to scratch back like a school-girl. Let us remember our manners, if nothing else."

"And our principles," added Kate haughtily.

"By all means, and forget our deviations from them. And now this conversation may as well end, may it not?"

Kate's only answer was to walk straight away to the house.

Eugene joined Claudia; Ayre, in his absence, had been reinforced by the accession of Bob Territon.

"Kate's going to-morrow," Eugene announced.

"So I heard," said Claudia. "We must go, too—we have been here a terrible time."

"Why?"

"It's all nonsense!" interposed Bob decisively; "we can't go for a week. The match is fixed for next Wednesday."

"But," said Claudia, "I'm not going to play."

"I am," said Bob. "And where do you propose to go to?"

"No, Lady Claudia," said Eugene, "you must see us through the great day. I really wish you would. The whole county's coming, and it will be too much for my mother alone. After the cricket-match, if you still insist, the deluge!"

"I'll ask Mrs. Lane. She'll tell me what to do."

"Good child!" said Sir Roderick. "I am going to stay right away till the birds. And as Lane says I ain't to have any birds unless I field at long-leg, I am going to field at long-leg."

"Splendid!" cried Claudia, clapping her hands; "Sir Roderick Ayre at a rustic cricket-match! Mr. Morewood shall sketch you."

"I've had enough of sketching just now," said Morewood. Ayre and Eugene looked up. Morewood nodded slightly.

"Where's Stafford?" asked Ayre.

"In his room—at work, I suppose. He put off my sitting."

"Never mind Father Stafford," said Claudia decisively. "Who is going to play tennis? I shall play with Sir Roderick."

"I'd much rather sit still in the shade," pleaded Sir Roderick.

"You're a very rude old gentleman! But you must play, all the same—against Bob and Mr. Morewood."

"Where do I come in?" asked Eugene. "Mayn't I do anything, Lady Claudia?"

The others were looking after the net and the racquets, and Claudia was left with him for a moment.

"Yes," she said; "you may go and sit on Kate's trunks till they lock."

"Wait a little while; I will be revenged on you. I want, though, to ask you a question."

"Oh! Is it a question that no one else—say Kate, for instance—could help you with?"

"It's not about myself."

"Is it about me?"

"Yes."

"What's the matter, Mr. Lane? Is it anything serious?"

"Very."

"Nonsense!" said Claudia. "You really mustn't do it, Mr. Lane, or I can't stay for the cricket-match."

"We shall be desolate. Stafford's going in a few days."

But Claudia's face was entirely guileless as she replied:

"Is he? I'm so sorry! But he's looking much stronger, isn't he?"

With which she departed to join Sir Roderick, who had been spending the interval in extracting from Morewood an account of Stafford's behavior.

"Hard hit, was he?" he concluded.

"He looked it."

"Wonder what he'll do! I'll give you five to four he asks her."

"Done!" said Morewood; "in fives."

Father Stafford Keeps Vigil.

Dinner that evening at the Manor was not a very brilliant affair. Stafford did not appear, pleading that it was a Friday, and a strict fast for him. Kate was distinctly out of temper, and treated the company in general, and Eugene in particular, with frigidity. Everybody felt that the situation was somewhat strained, and in consequence the pleasant flow of personal talk that marks parties of friends was dried up at its source. The discussion of general topics was found to be a relief.

"The utter uselessness of such a class as Ayre represents," said Morewood emphatically, taking up a conversation that had started no one quite knew how, "must strike every sensible man."

"At least they buy pictures," said Eugene.

"On the contrary, they now sell old masters, and empty the pockets of would-be buyers."

"They are very ornamental," remarked Claudia.

"In some cases, undoubtedly," said Morewood.

"If you mean a titled class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders think he's a gentlemen."

"Come, you're a baronet yourself, you know," said Eugene.

"It's true," admitted Ayre, with a sigh; "but it happened a long while ago, and we've nearly lived it down."

"Take care they don't make you a peer!"

"I have passed a busy life in avoiding it. After all, there's a chance. I'm not a brewer or a lawyer, or anything of that kind. But still, the fear of it has paralyzed my energies and compelled me to squander my fortune. They don't make poor men peers."

"That ought to have been allowed to weigh in the balance in favor of Dives," suggested Eugene.

"Not a bit," said Ayre. "Depend upon it, they kept it for him down below."

"I hate cynicism!" said Claudia, suddenly and aggressively.

Ayre put up his eyeglass.

"Après?"

"It's all affectation."

"Really, Lady Claudia, you might be quite old, from the way you talk. That is one of the illusions of age, which, by the way, have not received enough attention."

"That's very true," said Eugene. "Old people think the world better than it is because their faculties don't enable them to make such demands upon it."

"My dear Eugene," said Mrs. Lane pertinently, "what can you know about it? As we grow old we grow charitable."

"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of other people, but because you know more of yourself."

"That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?"

"At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane.

"By all means," said he.

"All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was all affectation."

"And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate Bernard, with remarkable emphasis.

Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side glance at Claudia on the way, he said:

"That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?"

"All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are the same kind of affectation, and are odious—especially in women."

There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told.

"You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and enthusiasm—gush, in fact—as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really springing from the same root?"

Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her head.

"An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps coquettishness?"

"Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which my mother used to say girls had better let alone."

This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for interfering now, put in suavely:

"If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering from the point?"

"Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene.

So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily, love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment—more especially other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.

Meanwhile, Stafford sat in his room alone, save for the company of his own picture. He was like a man who has been groping his way through difficult paths in the dark—uneasy, it may be, and nervous, but with no serious alarm. On a sudden, a storm-flash may reveal to him that he is on the very edge of a precipice or already ankle-deep in some bottomless morass. The sight of his own face, interpreted with all Morewood's penetrating insight and mastery of hand, had been a revelation to him. No more mercilessly candid messenger could have been found. Arguments he would have resisted or confuted; appeals to his own consciousness would have failed for want of experience; he could not affect to disbelieve the verdict of his own countenance. He had in all his life been a man who dealt plainly with himself; it was only in this last matter that the power, more than the will, to understand his own heart had failed him. His intellect now reasserted itself. He did not attempt to blink facts; he did not deny the truth of the revelation or seek to extenuate its force. He did not tell himself that the matter was a trifle, or that its effect would be transient. He recognized that he had fallen from the state of a priest vowed to Heaven, to that of a man whose whole heart and mind had gone out in love for a woman and were filled with her image. His judgment of himself was utterly reversed, his pre-suppositions confounded, his scheme of life wrecked; all this he knew for truth, unless indeed it might be that victory could still be his—victory after a struggle even to death; a struggle that had found no type or forecast in the mimic contests that had marked, almost without disturbing, his earlier progress on the road of his choice.

In the long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he fell on his knees, no longer in horror, but in abasement and penitence. Now all his thought was for the sin he had done to Heaven and to his vow; but had he not learnt and taught, and re-learnt in teaching, that there was no sin without pardon, if pardon were sought? And for a moment, not peace, but the far-off possible hope and prospect of peace regained comforted his spirit. It might be yet that he would come through the dark valley, and gaze with his old eyes on the light of his life set in the sky.

But was his sin only against Heaven and his vow and himself? Is sin so confined? If Morewood had seen, had not others? Had not she seen? Would not the discovery he had made come to her also? Nay, had it not come? He had been blind; but had she? Was it not far more likely that she had not deceived herself as to the tendency of their friendship, nor dreamt that he meant anything except what his acts, words, and looks had so plainly—yes, to his own eyes now, so plainly declared? He looked back on her graciousness, her delight in his society, her unconcealed admiration for him. What meaning had these but one? What did she know of his vow? Why should she dream of anything save the happy ending of the story that flits before the half-averted eyes of a girl when she is with her lover? Even if she had heard of his vow, would they not all tell her it was a conceit of youth, a spiritual affectation, a thing that a wise counselor would tell him and her quietly to set aside? Did it not all point to this? He was not only a perjurer toward Heaven, but his sin had brought woe and pain to her he loved.

So he groaned in renewed self-condemnation. But what did that mean? And then an irresistible tide of triumph swept over him, obliterating shame and horror and remorse. She loved him. He had won. Be it good or evil, she was his! Who forbade his joy? Though all the world, aye, and all Heaven, were against him, nothing should stop him. Should he sin for naught? Should he not have the price of his soul? Should he not enjoy what he had bought so dearly? Enough of talking, and enough of reasoning! Passion filled him, and he knew no good nor evil save its satiety or hunger.

The mad mood passed, and there came a worthier mind. He sat and looked along the avenue of his life. He saw himself walking hand in hand with her. Now she was not the instrument of his pleasure, but the helper in his good deeds. By her sweet influence he was stronger to do well; his broader sympathies and fuller life made a servant more valuable to his Master; he would serve Heaven as well and man better, and, knowing the common joys of man, he would better minister to common pains. Who was he that he should claim to lead a life apart, or arrogate to himself an immunity and an independence other men had not? Man and woman created He them, and did it not make for good? And he sank back in his chair, with the picture of a life before him, blessed and giving blessings, and ending at last in an old age, when she would still be with him, when he should be the head and inspiration of a house wherein God's service was done, when he should see his son's sons following in his steps, and so, having borne his part, fall asleep, to wake again to an union wherein were no stain of earth and no shadow of parting.

From these musings he awoke with a shudder, as there came back to him many a memory of lofty pitying words, with which he had gently drawn aside the cloak of seemliness wherein some sinner had sought to wrap his sin. His dream of the perfect joint-life, what was it but a sham tribute to decency, a threadbare garment for the hideousness of naked passion? Had he taught himself to contemplate such a life, and shaped himself for it, it might be a worthy life—not the highest, but good for men who were not made for saints. But as it was, it seemed to him but a glazing over of his crime. Sternly there stood between him and it his profession and his pledge. If he would forsake the one and violate the other, by Heaven, he would do it boldly, and not seek to slink out by such self-cozening. At least he would not deceive himself again. If he sinned, he would sin openly to his own heart. There should be no compact: nothing but defeat or victory! And yet, was he right? It would be pitiful if for pride's sake, if for fear of the sneers of men, he were to kill her joy and defile his own soul with her heart's blood. People would laugh at the converted celibate—was it that he feared? Had he fallen so low as that? or was the shrinking he felt not rather the dread that his fall would be a stone of stumbling to others? for in his infatuation he had assumed to be an example. Was there no distinguishing good and evil? Could every motive and every act change form and color as you looked at it, and be now the counsel of Heaven, and now the prompting of Satan? How, then, could a man choose his path? In his bewilderment the darkness closed round him, and he groaned aloud.

It was late now, nearly midnight, and the house was quiet. Stafford walked to the open window and leant out, bending his tired head upon his hand. As he looked out he saw through the darkness Eugene and Ayre still sitting on the terrace. Ayre was talking.

"Yes," he was saying, "we are taught to think ourselves of a mighty deal of importance. How we fare and what we do is set before us as a thing about which angels rejoice or mourn. The state of our little minds, or souls, or whatever it is, is a matter of deep care to the Creator—the Life of the universe. How can it be? How are we more than minutest points in that picture in his mind, which is the world? I speak in human metaphor, as one must speak. In truth, we are at once a fraction, a tiny fraction—oh! what a tiny fraction—of the picture, and the like little jot of what it exists for. And does what comes to us matter very much—whether we walk a little more or a little less cleanly—aim a little higher or lower, if there is a higher and lower? What matter? Ah, Eugene, our parents and our pastors teach us vanity! To me it seems pitiful. Let us take our little sunshine, doing as little harm and giving as little pain as we may, living as long as we can, and doing our little bit of useful work for the ground when we are dead, if we did none for the world when we were living. If you cremate, you will deprive many people of their only utility."

Eugene gently laughed.

"Of course you put it as unattractively as you can."

"Yes; but I can't put it unattractively enough to be true. I used to fret and strive, and think archangels hung on my actions. There are none; and if there were, what would they care for me? I am a part of it, I suppose—a part of the Red King's dream, as Alice says. But what a little part! I do well if I suffer little and give little suffering, and so quietly go to help the cabbages."

"I don't think I believe it," said Eugene.

"I suppose not. It's hard to believe and impossible to disbelieve."

Stafford listened intently. Memories came back to him of books he had read and put behind him; books wherein Ayre had found his creed, if the thing could be called a creed. Was that true? Was he rending his soul for nothing? A day earlier such a thought would have been to him at once a torture and a sin. Now he found a strange comfort in it. Why strive and cry, when none watched the effort or heard the agony? Why torture himself? Why torture others? If the world were good, why was he not to have his part? If it were bad, might he not find a quiet nook under the wall, out of the storm? Why must he try to breast it? If Ayre was right, what a tragical farce his struggle was, what a perverse delusion, what an aimless flinging away of the little joy his little life could offer! If this were so, then was he indeed alone in the world—except for Claudia. Was his choice in truth between this world and the next? He might throw one away and never find the other.

Then he cursed the voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to pray. But, like the guilty king, he could not say Amen. He could not bind his wandering thoughts, nor dispel the forward imaginings of his distempered mind. He asked one thing, and in his heart desired another; he prayed, and did not desire an answer to his prayer; for when he tried to bow his heart in supplication, ever in the midst, between him and the throne before which he bent, came the form and the face and the voice he loved, and the temptation and the longing and the doubt. And he was tost and driven about through the livelong night till, in utter weariness, he fell on the floor and slept.

An Early Train and a Morning's Amusement.

It was still early when he awoke, weary, stiff, and unrefreshed, but with a conviction in his mind that had grown plain and strong in the mysterious way notions sometimes seem to gather force in hours of unconsciousness, and surprise us with their mature vigor when we awake. "I must go!" he kept muttering to himself; "I must go—go and think. I dare do nothing now." He hastily packed a hand bag, wrote a note for Eugene, asking that the rest of his luggage might be forwarded to an address he would send, went quietly downstairs, and, finding the door just opened, passed out unseen. He had three miles to walk to the station, but his restless feet brought him there quickly, and he had more than an hour to wait for the first train, at half-past eight. He sat down on the platform and waited. His capacity for thought and emotion seemed for the time exhausted. His thoughts wandered from one trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them. He found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought settled on men condemned to death. Still, it passed the time, and he was surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's inharmonious bell.

At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.

"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say. "Four boxes, a portmanteau, and a hat-box. No, I'm not going—this lady and gentleman."

Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the platform. Stafford involuntarily shrank back.

"Just in time!" Eugene was saying; "though why the dickens you people will start at such an hour, I don't know. Haddington, I suppose, always must be in a hurry—never does for a rising man to admit he's got spare time. But you, Kate! Its positively uncomplimentary!"

He spoke lightly, but there was a troubled look on his face; and as Haddington went off to take the tickets he drew near to Kate, and said suddenly:

"You are determined on this, Kate?"

"On what?" she asked coldly.

"Why, to go like this—to bolt—it almost comes to that—leaving things as they are between us?"

"Why not?"

"And with Haddington?"

"Do you mean to insult me?"

"Of course not. But how do you think it must look to me? What do you imagine my course must be?"

"Really, Eugene, I see no need for this scene. I suppose your course will be to wait till I ask you to fulfill your promise, and then to fulfill it. You have no sort of cause for complaint."

Eugene could not resist a smile.

"You are sublime!" he said. Perhaps he would have said more, but at this moment, to his intense surprise, his eyes met Stafford's. The latter gave him a quick look, in obedience to which he checked his exclamation, and, making some excuse about a parcel due and not arrived, unceremoniously handed Kate to a carriage, bundled Haddington in after her, and walked rapidly to the front of the train, where he had just seen Stafford getting into a third-class compartment.

"What in the world's the meaning of this, my dear old boy?"

"I have left a note for you."

"That will explain?"

"No," said Stafford, with his unsparing truthfulness, "it will not explain."

"How fagged you look!"

"Yes, I am tired."

"You must go now, and like this?"

"I think that is less bad than anything else."

"You can't tell me?"

"Not now, old fellow. Perhaps I will some day."

"You'll let me know what you're doing? Hallo, she's off! And, Stafford, nothing ever between us?"

"Why should there be?" he answered, with some surprise. "But you know there couldn't be."

The train moved on as they shook hands, and Eugene retraced his steps to his phaeton.

"He's given her up," he said to himself, with an irrepressible feeling of relief. "Poor old fellow! Now—"

But Eugene's reflections were not of a character that need or would repay recording. He ought to have been ashamed of himself. I venture to think he was. Nevertheless, he arrived home in better spirits than a man has any right to enjoy when he has seen his mistress depart in a temper and his best friend in sorrow. Our spirits are not always obedient to the dictates of propriety. It is often equally in vain that we call them from the vasty deep, or try to dismiss them to it. They are rebellious creatures, whose only merit is their sincerity.

Sir Roderick Ayre allowed few things to surprise him, but the fact of any one deliberately starting by the early train was one of the few. In regard to such conduct, he retained all his youthful capacity for wonder. Surprise, however, gave way to unrestrained and indecent exultation when he learned that the early party had consisted of Kate and Haddington, and that Eugene himself had escorted them to the station. Eugene was in too good a temper to be seriously annoyed.

"I know it makes me look an ass," he said, as they smoked the after-breakfast pipe, "but I suppose that's all in the day's work."

"No doubt. It is the day's work," said Ayre; "but, oh, diplomatic young man, why didn't you tell us at breakfast that the pope had also gone?"

"Oh, you know that?"

"Of course. My man Timmins brings me what I may call a way-bill every morning, and against Stafford's name was placed '8.30 train.'"

"Useful man, Timmins," said Eugene. "Did he happen to add why he had gone?"

"There are limitations even to Timmins. He did not."

"You can guess?"

"Well, I suppose I can," answered Ayre, with some resentment.

"He's given it up, apparently."

"I don't know."

"He must have. Awfully cut up he looked, poor old chap! I was glad Kate and Haddington didn't see him."

"Poor chap! He takes it hard. Hallo! here's the fons et origo mali."

Morewood joined them.

"I have been," he said gravely, "rescuing my picture. That insipid lunatic had wrapped it up in brown paper, and put it among his socks in his portmanteau. I couldn't see it anywhere till I routed out the portmanteau. If it had come to grief I should have entered the Academy."

"Don't give way so," said Ayre; "it's unmanly. Control your emotions."

Eugene rose.

"Where are you going?"

Eugene smiled.

"This," said Ayre to Morewood, with a wave of his hand, "is an abandoned young man."

"It is," said Morewood. "Bob Territon is going rat-hunting, and proposes we shall also go. What say you?"

"I say yes," said Sir Roderick, with alacrity. "It's a beastly cruel sport."

"You have lost," said Morewood, as they walked away together.

"Wait a bit!" said his companion. "But, young Eugene! It's a pity that young man has no morals."

"Is that so?"

"Oh! not simpliciter, you know. Secundum quid."

"Secundum feminam, in fact?"

"Yes; and I brought him up, too."

"'By their fruits ye shall know them.' But here's Bob and the terriers."

"Don't you fellows ever have a sister," said Bob, as he came up; "Claudia's just savage because the pope's gone. Can't get her morning absolution, you know."

"Are absolution and ablution the same word, Morewood?" asked Ayre.

"Don't know. Ask the Rector. He's sure to turn up when he hears of the rats."

"I think they must be—a sort of spiritual tub. But Morewood will never admit he's been educated. It detracts from his claim to genius."

Eugene, freed from this frivolous company, was not long in discovering Claudia's whereabouts. He felt like a boy released from school and, turning his eyes away from future difficulties, was determined to enjoy himself while he could. Claudia was seated on the lawn in complete idleness and, apparently, considerable discontent.

"Do your guests always scurry away without saying good-by to anybody, Mr. Lane?" she asked.

"I hope that you, at least, will not. But didn't Kate say good-by, or Haddington?"

"I meant Father Stafford, of course."

"Oh, he had to go. He sent an apology to you and all the party."

"Did he tell you why he had to go?"

"No," said Eugene, regarding her with covert attention.

"It's a pity if he's unaccountable. I like him so much otherwise."

"You don't like unaccountable people?"

Claudia seemed quite willing to let Stafford drop out of the conversation.

"No," she said; "I tolerate you, Mr. Lane, because I always know exactly what you'll do."

"Do you?" he asked, only moderately pleased. A man likes to be thought a little mysterious. No doubt Claudia knew that.

"I don't think you know what I am going to do now."

"What?"

"I'm going to ask you if you know why Father Stafford—"

"Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Lane. I can't speculate on your friend's motives. I don't profess to understand him."

This might be indifference; it sounded to Eugene very like pique.

"I thought you might know."

"Mr. Lane," said Claudia, "either you mean something or you don't. If the one, you're taking a liberty, and one entirely without excuse; if the other, you are simply tedious."

"I beg your pardon," said Eugene stiffly.

Claudia gave a little laugh.

"Why do you make me be so aggressive? I don't want to be. Was I awfully severe?"

"Yes, rather."

"I meant it, you know. But did you come quite resolved to quarrel? I want to be pleasant." And Claudia raised her eyes with a reproachful glance.

"In anger or otherwise, you are always delightful," said Eugene politely.

"I accept that as a diplomatic advance—not in its literal sense. After all, I must be nice to you. You're all alone this morning."

"Lady Claudia," said he gravely, "either you mean something or you do not. If the one—"

"Be quiet this moment!" she said, laughing.

He obeyed and lay back in his low chair with a sigh of content.

"Yes; never mind Stafford and never mind Kate. Why should we? They're not here."

"My silence is not to be taken for consent," said Claudia, "only it's too fine a day to spend in trying to improve you or, indeed, anybody else. But I shall not forget any of my friends."

Now up to this point Eugene had behaved tolerably well. It is, however, a dangerous thing to set yourself deliberately to study a lady's attractions. Like all other one-sided views of a subject, it is apt to carry you too far. The sun and the wind were playing about in Claudia's hair, her eyes were full of light, and her whole air, in spite of a genuine effort after demureness, conveyed to any self-respecting man an irresistible challenge to make himself agreeable if he could. Eugene's notions of making himself agreeable were, as may have been gathered, liberal; they certainly included more than can be considered strictly incumbent on young men in society. And, besides being polite, Eugene was also curious. It is one thing to silently suffer under a passion which a sense of duty forbids; such a position has its pleasures. The situation is altered when the idea dawns upon you that there is no reciprocity of graceful suffering; that, in fact, the lady may prefer somebody else. Eugene wanted to know where he stood.

"Shall you be sorry to leave here?" he asked.