Pamela Graydon had been Pamela Trevithick for three years, when one day in late summer Sylvia, still Sylvia Graydon, was entertaining a visitor in her London drawing-room.

It was Lord Glengall, a shade greyer, a shade leaner, but looking well nevertheless, and brown with southern suns.

"And so," he said, "we shall travel back to Ireland together."

"It will be a delightful and unexpected pleasure to have your company."

"You are glad to return, Sylvia?"

"Glad! It is no word for it. I am hungry for the velvety wind that blows across the mountains. I am so tired of these glaring streets, of parties, and dinners and luncheons, and functions of all kinds."

Lord Glengall laughed.

"To tell you the truth, I am amazed and amused to find your father in the midst of it all."

"Papa! Oh, papa is the veriest Piccadilly lounger. He has returned to it all as freshly as if he had never left it. He discovered troops of old friends—without a misgiving—as soon as ever he came in for the title."

"He doesn't pine for Carrickmoyle?"

"Now and again. When the desire becomes very strong, he and I slip away to Euston some evening, forgetting all our engagements, and, for a few days, our new circumstances, at Carrickmoyle, where Bridget cooks our chops and makes us potato-cakes just as of old."

"I am glad to hear Bridget is still to the fore."

"She is not a day older."

"She never carried out her threat of marrying my gardener?"

"Mr. Grady is still a widdy-man, as they used to say in the dear country."

"But to return to your father. The magnum opus has become an accomplished fact. You see, I haven't been so far out of the world as not to have heard that."

"Yes. It has been a great success. He is as much in request at learned societies and conversaziones as he is in fashionable drawing-rooms. To think of the years he vegetated at Carrickmoyle!"

"Happy years, Sylvia."

"I could hardly hope for happier."

"He will be in soon, Sylvia?"

"About half-past five," consulting a little watch fastened to her gown. "You can endure my company till then."

"I shall try to. But am I not keeping you from afternoon calls or something? I saw a carriage at the door as I came in."

"I have sent it away. I was rejoiced to do it. Papa will be simply wild with delight at your falling from the clouds like this."

"He hasn't forgotten me, then?"

"How should he? The only drawback about Carrickmoyle has been that we could see from it the cold chimneys of Glengall."

"Ah! we shall warm them," said Lord Glengall, beaming at her. "We shall have fine jinks if only you and your father will spend six months of the year at Carrickmoyle. I am no Londoner, and never shall be. But I shall be able to endure six months of solitude if I know I am going to have you for the remainder of the year."

"You will not long be left solitary. You cheated the country the last time by disappearing again before it had had time to rejoice over you. Your return will flutter the dovecotes for thirty miles around."

"You are very kind, Sylvia," said Lord Glengall simply. "But you have not told me half the news," he went on. "How is Molly?"

"Flourishing. Mick has got his company. He wouldn't leave the service on any consideration, and I think he was right. They are as much in love with each other as ever; and they have a beautiful boy."

"Ah! that is right. Molly deserved to be happy."

"She did, and so did Mick. Mick is a dear old fellow."

"And Pam, Sylvia?"

There was no consciousness in his voice.

"Pam, too, is a success. She has been a beauty for three seasons, strange to say."

"And it is a happy marriage?"

"Perfectly happy. They are ideally well suited."

"I am glad of that. How does Pam get on with her mother-in-law?"

"Fairly well, I believe. Lady Jane keeps herself to herself, which is lucky for Pam. I never took to that lady. But she is devoted to the heir. She wouldn't strike you, somehow, as a grandmotherly person, but it is so."

"There is an heir?"

"Yes; he is two years old, and he has a baby sister of seven months."

"Ah! how you young people have been making history since I left. I shall not know this new world of your making."

"You find me changed?"

"Lovelier, Sylvia."

"It is nice to have you say that."

"Still greedy for conquest, even though it is only an old fogey?"

"Ah!"—with more intensity than he thought the occasion demanded—"you never can be that!"

"You are always kind, little girl. When I look into your eyes, I fancy it is the old Sylvia I am talking to, and not a fine lady."

"It is the old Sylvia."

"The Sylvia I knew would never have worn this"—touching a fold of her dress.

"She would, if she could. It is only a Paris tea-gown. She was happier in the prints at sixpence a yard from Guirk's shop in Lettergort."

"Happier, Sylvia? What have you been doing with yourself since?"

"Growing old and faded with trying to occupy several houses at once and doing a great many things I detest."

She laughed at him from where she sat in her youth and beauty, and he laughed in answer.

"Where are the lads who used to be in love with you?"

"All married, except Algy St. Quintin; but he has long given up asking me. We are good comrades."

"No more than that, Sylvia?"

"No more than that. I wouldn't lose sight of him for anything. He is just the same imp of mischief, as Bridget used to call him. His coolness is phenomenal, and his impudence so deliciously incongruous with his cherubic boy's face."

"There is no one else, Sylvia?"

"There is no one else."

"Ah! you are so hard-hearted, child. Or is it that you will stay with your father?"

"Not altogether that. I've seen no one here I would marry."

"Yet you have met all sorts and conditions of men."

"All sorts and conditions, but not the right one."

"The right one will come."

"He might come—he may have come, and not have found me the right woman."

She looked at him an instant; then she suddenly blushed hotly, and her eyes fell and rested on the jewelled fingers in her lap. So full was her attitude of yielding and submission that it might well make the heart of a lover leap.

A sudden, bewildering idea came to the man before her. For an instant he was dazed with the shock of it. Then he stood up and paced the room in great agitation.

"Sylvia," he said at last, pausing before her where she still sat, a lovely image of submission, "Pamela was right when she did not marry me."

"She was right because she did not love you."

"How could she love me? I might have been her father."

"That is no reason. Love does not take count of such things."

"Ah, Sylvia! What has love to do with grey hairs?"

"If there is love, they are better than gold."

"Sylvia, do you know what madness you are putting into my head?"

"I cannot know unless you tell me."

Sylvia's eyes were raised to his with a flash of the old audacity.

"Perhaps I dare not tell you."

"Ah, do!"

"If I were a young man and you would do it, you might turn this work-a-day earth to Paradise for me."

"And why not now?"

He made a step towards her.—p. 552.