Since Quarren had left Witch-Hollow, he and Strelsa had exchanged half-a-dozen letters of all sorts—gay, impersonal notes, sober epistles reflecting more subdued moods, then letters fairly sparkling with high spirits and the happy optimism of young people discovering that there is more of good than evil in a world still really almost new to them. Then there was a long letter of description and amusing narrative from her, in which, here and there, she became almost sentimental over phases of rural beauty; and he replied at equal length telling her about his new shop-work in detail.

Suddenly, out of a clear sky, there came from her a short, dry, and deliberate letter mentioning once more her critical worldly circumstances and the necessity of confronting them promptly and with intelligence and decision.

To which he answered vigorously, begging her to hold out—either fit herself for employment—or throw her fortunes in with his and take the chances.

"Rix dear," she answered, "don't you suppose I have thought of that? But I can't do it. There is nothing left in me to go on with. I'm burnt out—deadly tired, wanting nothing more than I shall have by marrying as I must marry. For I shall have you, too, as I have always had you. You said so, didn't you?

"What difference, then, does it make to you or me whether or not I am married?

"If you were sufficiently equipped to take care of me, and if I married you, I could not give you anything more than I have given already—I would not wish to if I could. All that many other women consider part of love—all that lesser side of it and of marriage I could not give to you or to any man—could not endure; because it is not in me and never has been. It is foreign to me, unpleasant, distasteful—even hateful.

"So as I can give you nothing more than I have given or ever shall give, and as you have given me all you can—anyway all I care for in you—let me feel free to seek my worldly salvation and find the quiet and rest and surcease from anxiety which comes only under such circumstances.

"You won't think unkindly of me, will you, Rix? I don't know very much; I amount to very little. What ideals I had are dead. Why should anybody bother to agree or disagree with my very unaggressive opinions or criticise harshly a life which has been spent mainly in troubling the world as little as possible?

---

"There are a number of people here—among them several friends of Jim Wycherly, all of them aviation-mad. Jim took out the Stinger, smashed the planes and got a fall which was not very serious. Lester Caldera did the same thing to the Kent biplane except that he fell into the river and Sir Charles and Chrysos, in the launch, fished him out—swearing, they say.

"Vincent Wier made a fine flight in his Delatour Dragon, sailing 'round and 'round like a big hawk for a quarter of an hour, but the wind came up and he couldn't land, and he finally came down thirty miles north of us in a swamp.

"Langly took me for a short flight in his Owlet No. 3—only two miles and not very high, but the sensation was simply horrid. I never even cared for motoring, you see, so the experience left me most unenthusiastic, greatly to Langly's disgust. Really, all I care for is a decently gaited horse—and I prefer to walk him half the time. There is nothing speedy about me, Rix. If I ever had the inclination it's gone now.

"To the evident displeasure of Sir Charles, Langly took up Chrysos Lacy; and the child adored it. I believe Sir Charles said something cutting to Langly in his quiet and dry way which has, apparently, infuriated my to-be-affianced, for he never goes near Sir Charles, now, and that cold-eyed gentleman completely ignores him. Which is not very agreeable for me.

"Oh, Rix, there seems to be so many misunderstandings in this exceedingly small world of ours—rows innumerable, heartburns, recriminations, quarrels secret and open, and endless misunderstandings.

"Please don't let any come between us, will you? Somehow, lately, I find myself looking on you as a distant but solid and almost peaceful refuge for my harried thoughts. And I'm so very, very tired of being hunted.

"If they hunt you too hard," he wrote to Strelsa, "the gateway of my friendship is open to you always: remember that, now and in the days to come.

"What you have written leaves me with nothing to answer except this. To all it is given to endure according to their strength; beyond it no one can strive; but short of its limits it's a shame to show faint-heartedness.

"About the man you are determined to marry I have no further word to say. You know in what repute he is held in your world, and you believe that its censure is unjust. There is good in every man, perhaps, and perhaps the good in this man may show itself only in response to the better qualities in you.

"Somehow, without trying, you almost instantly evoke the better qualities in me. You changed my entire life; do you know it? I myself scarcely comprehended why. Perhaps the negative sweetness in you concentrated and brought out the positive strength so long dormant in me. All I know clearly is that you came into my life and found a fool wasting it, capering about in a costume half livery, half motley. My ambition was limited to my cap and bells; my aspirations never reached beyond the tip of my bauble. Then I saw you—and, all by themselves, my rags of motley fell from me, and something resembling a man stepped clear of them.

"I am trying to make out of myself all that there is in me to develop. It is not much—scarcely more than the ability to earn a living.

"I have come to care for nothing more than the right to look this sunny world straight in the face. Until I knew you I had scarcely seen it except through artificial light—scarce heard its voice; for the laughter of your world and the jingle of my cap and bells drowned it in my ass's ears.

"I could tell you—for in dark moments I often believe it—that there is only one thing that counts in the world—one thing worth having, worth giving—love!

"But in my heart I know it is not so; and the romancers are mistaken; and so is the heart denied.

"Better and worth more than love of man or woman is the mind's silent approval—whether given in tranquillity or accorded in dumb anguish.

"Strelsa dear, I shall always care for you; but I have discovered that love is another matter—higher or lower as you will—but different. And I do not think I shall be able to love the girl who does what you are decided to do. And that does not mean that I criticise you or blame you, or that my sympathy, affection, interest, in you will be less. On the contrary all these emotions may become keener; only one little part will die out, and that without changing the rest—merely that mysterious, curious, elusive and illogical atom in the unstable molecule, which we call love—and which, when separated, leaves the molecule changed only in name. We call it friendship, then.

"And this is, I think, what you would most desire. So when you do what you have determined to do, I will really become toward you what you are—and have always been—toward me. And could either of us ask for more?

"Only—forgive me—I wish it had been Sir Charles—or almost any other man. But that is for your decision. Strelsa governs and alone is responsible to Strelsa.

"Meanwhile do not doubt my affection—do not fear unkindness, judgment, or criticism. I wish I were what you cared for most in the world—after the approval of your own mind. I wish you cared for me not only as you do but with all that has never been aroused in you. For without that I am helpless to fight for you.

"So, in your own way, you will live life through, knowing that in me you will always have an unchanged friend—even though the lover died when you became a wife. Is all clear between us now?

---

"If you are ever in town, or passing through to Newport or Bar Harbour, stop and inspect our gallery.

"It is really quite pretty and some of the pictures are excellent. You should see it now—sunlight slanting in through the dusty bay-window, Dankmere at a long polished table doing his level best to assemble certain old prints out of a portfolio containing nearly a thousand; pretty little Miss Vining, pencil in hand, checking off at her desk the reference books we require in our eternal hunt for information; I below stairs in overalls if you please, paint and varnish stained, a jeweller's glass screwed into my left eye, examining an ancient panel which I strongly hope may have been the work of a gentleman named Bronzino—for its mate is almost certainly the man in armour in the Metropolitan Museum.

"Strelsa, it is the most exciting business I ever dreamed of. And the beauty of it is that it leads out into everything—stretches a thousand sensitive tentacles which grasp at knowledge of beauty everywhere—whether it lie in the sombre splendour of the tapestries of Bayeux, of Italy, of Flanders; or deep in the woven magnificence of some dead Sultan's palace rug; or in the beauty of the work of silversmiths, goldsmiths, of sculptors in ivory or in wood long dead; or in the untinted marbles of the immortal masters.

"Never before did I understand how indissolubly all arts are linked, how closely and eternally knit together in the vast fabric fashioned by man from the beginning of time, and in the cryptograms of which lie buried all that man has ever thought and hoped.

---

"My cat, Daisy, recently presented the Dankmere Galleries with five squeaking kittens of assorted colour and design. Their eyes are now open.

"Poor Daisy! It seems only yesterday when, calmly purring on my knee, she heard for the first time in her innocent life a gentleman cat begin an intermezzo on the back fence.

"Never before had Daisy heard such amazing language: she rose, astounded, listening; then, giving me one wild glance, fled under the piano. I shied an empty bottle at the moon-lit minstrel; and I supposed that Daisy approved. But man supposes and cat proposes and—Daisy's kittens are certainly ornamental. Dankmere carries one in each pocket, Daisy trotting at his heels with an occasional little exclamation of solicitude and pride.

"Really we're a funny lot here in the Dankmere Galleries—not superficially business-like perhaps, for we close at five and have tea in the extension, Dankmere, Miss Vining, I, Daisy, and her young ones—Daisy and the latter taking their nourishment together in a basket which Miss Vining has lined with blue silk.

"In the evenings sometimes Miss Vining remains and dines with Dankmere and myself at some near restaurant; and after dinner Karl Westguard comes in and reads the most recent chapter of his novel—or perhaps Dankmere plays and sings old-time songs for us—or, if the heat makes us feel particularly futile, I perform some of those highly intellectual tricks which once made me acceptable among people I now seldom or never see.

"Miss Vining, as I have already told you in other letters, is a sweet, sincere girl with no pretence to anything out of the ordinary yet blessed with a delicate sense of honour and incidentally of humour.

"She is quite alone in the world, and, now that she has made up her mind about Dankmere and me I can see that she shyly enjoys our including her in our harmless informalities.

"Westguard is immensely interested in her as a 'type,' and he informs me that he is 'studying' her. Which is more or less bosh; but Karl loves to take himself seriously.

"Nobody you know has been to see us. It may be because your world is out of town, but I'm beginning to believe that the Dankmere Galleries need expect no patronage from that same world. Friendship usually fights shy of the frontiers of business. Old acquaintanceship is forgot very quickly when one side or the other has anything to sell. Only those thrifty imitations of friends venture near in quest of special privilege; and not getting it, go, never to return. Ubi amici, ibi opes!

---

"When you pass through this furnace of Ascalon called New York will you stop among the Philistines long enough to take a cup of tea with us?—I'll show you the pictures; Dankmere will play 'Shannon Water' for you; Miss Vining will talk pretty platitudes to you, Daisy will purr for you, and the painted eyes of Dankmere's ancestors will look down approvingly at you from the wall; and all our little world will know that the loveliest and best of all the greater world is breaking bread with us under our roof, and that one for once, unlike man's dealings with your celestial sisters, our entertainment of you will not be wholly unawares.

The basement workshop was aromatic with the odours of solvents, mediums, and varnishes when he returned from posting his letter to Strelsa. His old English mentor had departed for good, leaving him to go forward alone in his profession.

And now, as he stood there, looking out into the sunny backyard, for the first time he felt the silence and isolation of the place, and his own loneliness. Doubt crept in whispering the uselessness of working, of saving, of self-denial, of laying by anything for a future that already meant nothing of happiness to him.

For whom, after all, should he save, hoard, gather together, economise? Who was there to labour for? For whom should he endure?

He cared nothing for women; he had really never cared for any woman excepting only this one. He would never marry and have a son. He had no near or distant relatives. For whose sake, then, was he standing here in workman's overalls? What business had he here in the basement of a shabby house in midsummer? Did there remain any vague hope of Strelsa? Perhaps. Hope is the last of one's friends to die. Or was it for himself that he was working now to provide against those evil days "when the keepers of the house shall tremble"? Perhaps he was unconsciously obeying nature's first law.

And yet, slowly within him grew a certainty that these reasons were not the real ones—not the vital impulse that moved his hand steadily through critical and delicate moments as he bent, breathless, over the faded splendours of ancient canvases. No; somehow or other he had already begun to work for the sake of the work itself—whatever that really meant. That was the basic impulse—the occult motive; and, somehow he knew that, once aroused, the desire to strive could never again in him remain wholly quiescent.

---

Both Dankmere and Miss Vining had gone to lunch, presumably in different directions; Daisy and her youngsters, having been nourished, were asleep; there was not a sound in the house except the soft rubbing of tissue-paper where Quarren was lightly removing the retouching varnish from a relined canvas. Presently the front door-bell rang.

Quarren rinsed his hands and, still wearing overalls and painter's blouse, mounted the basement stairs and opened the front door. And Mrs. Sprowl supported by a footman waddled in, panting.

"Tell your master I want to see him," she said—"I don't mean that fool of an Englishman; I mean Mr. Quar—Good Lord! Ricky, is that you? Here, get me a chair—those front steps nearly killed me. Long ago I swore I'd never enter a house which was not basement-built and had an elevator!... Hand me one of those fans. And if there's any water in the house not swarming with typhoid germs, get me a glass of it."

He brought her a tumbler of spring water; she panted and gulped and fanned and panted, her little green eyes roaming around her.

Presently she dismissed the footman, and turned her heavily flushed face on Quarren. The rolls of fat crowded the lace on her neck, perspiration glistened under her sparklike eyes.

"How are you?" she inquired.

He said, smilingly, that he was well.

"You don't look it. You look gaunt.... Well, I never thought you'd come to this—that you had it in you to do anything useful."

"I believe I've heard you say so now and then," he said with perfect good-humour.

"Why not? Why should I have thought that your talents amounted to more than ornaments?"

"No reason to suppose so," he admitted, amused.

"Not the slightest. Talent usually damns people to an effortless existence. And yours was a pleasant one, too. You had a good time, didn't you?"

"Oh, very."

"There was nothing to do except to come in, kiss the girls all around, and make faces to amuse them, was there?"

"Not much more," he admitted, laughing.

Mrs. Sprowl's little green eyes travelled all over the walls.

"Umph," she snorted, "I suppose these are some of Dankmere's heirlooms. I never fancied that little bounder——"

"Wait!"

"What!"

"Wait a moment. I like Dankmere, and he isn't a bounder——"

"He is one!"

"Keep that opinion to yourself," he said bluntly.

The old lady's eyes blazed. "I'm damned if I do!" she retorted—"I'll say what——"

"Not here! You mustn't be uncivil here. You know well enough how to behave when necessary; and if you don't do it I'll call your carriage."

For fully five minutes Mrs. Sprowl sat there attempting to digest what he had said. The process was awful to behold, but she accomplished it at last with a violent effort.

"Ricky," she said, "I didn't come here to quarrel with you over an Englishman who—of whom I—have my personal opinion."

He laughed, leaned over and deliberately patted her fat wrist; and she glared at him somewhat as a tigress inspects a favourite but overgrown and presuming cub.

"I don't know why you came," he said, "but it was nice of you anyway and I am glad to see you."

"If that's true," she said, "you're one of mighty few. The joy which people feel in my presence is usually exhibited when I'm safely out of their houses, or they are out of mine."

She laughed at that; and he did too; and she gulped her glass of water empty and refused more.

"Ricky," she began abruptly, "you've been up to that Witch-Hollow place of Molly's?"

"Yes."

"Well, what the devil is going on there?"

"Aviation," he said blandly.

"What else? Don't evade an answer! I can't get anything out of that little idiot, Molly; I can't worm anything out of Sir Charles; I can't learn anything from Strelsa Leeds; and as for Langly he won't even answer my letters.

"Now I want to know what is going on there? I've been as short with Strelsa as I dare be—she's got to be led with sugar. I've almost ordered her to come to me at Newport—but she doesn't come."

"She's resting," said Quarren coolly.

"Hasn't she had time to rest in that dingy, dead-and-alive place? And what keeps Langly there? He has nothing to look at except a few brood-mares. Do you suppose he has the bad taste to hang around waiting for Chester Ledwith to get out and Mary Ledwith to return? Or is it something else that glues him there—with the Yulan in the North River?"

Quarren shrugged his lack of interest in the subject.

"If I thought," muttered the old lady—"if I imagined for one moment that Langly was daring to try any of his low, cold-blooded tricks on Strelsa Leeds, I'd go up there myself—I'd take the next train and tell that girl plainly what kind of a citizen my charming nephew really is!"

Quarren was silent.

"Why the dickens don't you say something?" she demanded. "I want to know whether I ought to go up there or not. Have you ever observed—have you ever suspected that there might be anything between Langly and Strelsa Leeds?—any tacit understanding—any interest on her part in him?... Why don't you answer me?"

"You know," he said, "that it's none of your business what I believe."

"Am I to take that impudence literally?"

"Exactly as I said it. You asked improper questions; I am obliged to remind you that you cannot expect me to answer them."

"Why can't you speak of Langly?"

"Because what concerns him does not concern me."

"I thought you were in love with Strelsa," she said bluntly.

"If I were, do you imagine I'd discuss it with you?"

"I'll tell you what!" she shouted, purple with rage, "you might do a damn sight worse! I'd—I'd rather see her your wife than his!—and God knows what he wants of her at that—as Mary Ledwith has first call or the world will turn Langly out of doors!"

Quarren, slightly paler, looked at her in silence.

"I tell you the world will spit in his face," she said between her teeth, "if he doesn't make good with Mary Ledwith after what he's done to her and her husband."

"He has too much money," said Quarren. "Besides there's an ordinance against it."

"You watch and see! Some things are too rotten to be endured——"

"What? I haven't noticed any either abroad or here. Anyway it doesn't concern me."

"Don't you care for that girl?"

"We are friends."

"Friends, eh!" she mimicked him wickedly, plying her fan like a madwoman; "well I fancy I know what sort of friendship has made you look ten years older in half a year. Oh, Ricky, Ricky!"—she added with an abrupt change of feeling—"I'm sorry for you. I like you even when you are impertinent to me—and you know I do! But I—my heart is set on her marrying Sir Charles. You know it is. Could anything on earth be more suitable?—happier for her as well as for him? Isn't he a man where Langly is a—a toad, a cold-blooded worm!—a—a thing!

"I tell you my heart's set on it; there is nothing else interests me; I think of nothing else, care for nothing else——"

"Why?"

"What?" she said, suddenly on her guard.

"Why do you care for it so much?"

"Why? That is an absurd question."

"Then answer it without taking time to search for any reason except the real one."

"Ricky, you insolent——"

"Never mind. Answer me; why are you so absorbed in this marriage?"

She said with a calmly contemptuous shrug: "Because Sir Charles is deeply in love with her, and I am fond of them both."

"Is that sufficient reason for such strenuous and persistent efforts on your part?"

"That—and hatred for Langly," she said stolidly.

"Just those three reasons?"

"Certainly. Just those three."

He shook his head.

"Do you disbelieve me?" she demanded.

"I am compelled to—knowing that never in all your life have you made the slightest effort in behalf of friendship—never inconvenienced yourself in the least for the sake of anybody on earth."

She stared at him, amazed, then angry, then burst into a loud laugh; but, even while laughing her fat features suddenly altered as though pain had cut mirth short.

"What is the matter?" he said.

"Nothing.... You are the matter.... I've always been fool enough to take you for a fool. You were the only one among us clever enough to read us and remain unread. God! If only some of us could see what we look like in the archives of your brain!... Let it go at that; I don't care what I look like as long as it's a friendly hand that draws my features.... I'm an old woman, remember.... And it is a friendly pencil you wield, isn't it, Ricky?"

"Yes."

"I believe it. I never knew you to do or say a deliberately unkind thing. I never knew you to abuse a confidence, either.... And you were the receptacle for many—Heaven only knows how many trivial, petty, miserable little intrigues you were made aware of, or how many secret kindnesses you have done.... Let that go, too. I want to tell you something."

She motioned him nearer; she was too stout to lean far forward: and he placed his chair beside hers.

"Do you know where and when Sir Charles first saw Strelsa Leeds?"

"Yes."

"In Egypt. She was the wife of the charming and accomplished Reggie at the time."

"I know."

"Did you know that Sir Charles fell in love with her then? That he never forgot her? That when Reggie finally took his last header into the ditch he had been riding for, Sir Charles came to me in America and asked what was best to do? That on my advice he waited until I managed to draw the girl out of her retirement? That then, on my advice, he returned to America to offer himself when the proper time arrived? Did you know these things, Rix?"

"No," he said.

"Then you know them now."

"Yes, I—" he hesitated, looking straight at her in silence. And after a while a slight colour not due to the heat deepened the florid hue of her features.

"I knew Sir Charles's father," she said in a voice so modulated—a voice so unexpected and almost pretty, that he could scarcely believe it was she who had spoken.

"You said," she went on under her breath, "that in all my life friendship has never inspired in me a kindly action. You are wrong, Rix. In the matter of this marriage my only inspiration is friendship—the friendship I had for a man who is dead.... Sir Charles is his only son."

Quarren looked at her in silence.

"I was young once, Ricky. I suppose you can scarcely believe that. Life and youth began early for me—and lasted a little more than a year—and then they both burnt out in my heart—leaving the rest of me alive—this dross!—" She touched herself on her bosom, then lowered her eyes, and sat thinking for a while.

Daisy walked into the room and seated herself in a bar of sunlight, pleasantly blinking her yellow eyes. Mrs. Sprowl glanced at her absently, and they eyed each other in silence.

Then the larger of the pair drew a thick, uneasy breath, looked up at Quarren, all the cunning and hardness gone from her heavy features.

"I've only been trying to do for a dead man's son what might have pleased that man were he alive," she said. "Sir Charles was a little lad when he died. But he left a letter for him to read when he was grown up. I never saw the letter, but Sir Charles has told me that, in it, his father spoke—amiably—of me and said that in me his son would always find a friend.... That is all, Rix. Do you believe me?"

"Yes."

"Then—should I go to Witch-Hollow?"

"I can't answer you."

"Why?"

"Because—because I care for her too much. And I can do absolutely nothing for her. I could not swerve her or direct her. She alone knows what is in her heart and mind to do. I cannot alter it. She will act according to her strength; none can do otherwise.... And she is tired to the very soul.... You tell me that life and youth in you died within a year's space. I believe it.... But with her it took two years to die. And then it died.... Let her alone, in God's name! The child is weary of pursuit, deathly weary of importunity—tired, sad, frightened at the disaster to her fortune. Let her alone. If she marries it will be because of physical strength lacking—strength of character, of mind—perhaps moral, perhaps spiritual strength—I don't know. All I know is that no man or woman can help her, because the world has bruised her too long and she's afraid of it."

For a long while Mrs. Sprowl sat there in silence; then:

"It is strange," she mused, "that Strelsa should be afraid of Sir Charles."

"I don't think she is."

"Then why on earth won't she marry him? He is richer than Langly!"

Quarren looked at her oddly:

"But Sir Charles is her friend, you see. And so am I.... Friends do not make a convenience of one another."

"She could learn to love him. He is a lovable fellow."

"I think," said Quarren, "that she has given to him and to me all that there is in her to give to any man. And so, perhaps, she could not make the convenience of a husband out of either of us."

"What a twisted, ridiculous, morbid——"

"Let her alone," he said gently.

"Very well.... But I'll be hanged if I let Langly alone! He's still got me to deal with, thank God!—whatever he dares do to Mary Ledwith—whatever he has done to that wretched creature Chester Ledwith—he's still got a perfectly vigorous aunt to reckon with. And we'll see," she added—"we'll see what can be done——"

The front door opened noisily.

"That's Dankmere," he said. "If you are not going to be civil to him hadn't you better go?"

"I'll be civil to him," she snorted, "but I'm going anyway. Good-bye, Ricky. I'll buy a picture of you when the weather's cooler.... How-de-do!"—as his lordship entered looking rather hot and mussy—"Hope your venture into the realms of art will prove successful, Lord Dankmere. Really, Rix, I must be going—if you'll call my man——"

"I'll take you down," he said, smilingly offering his support.

So Mrs. Sprowl rolled away in her motor, and Quarren came back, wearied with the perplexities and strain of life, to face once more the lesser problems of the immediate present: one of them was an ancient panel in the basement, and he went downstairs to solve it, leaving Dankmere sorting out old prints and Jessie Vining, who had just returned, writing business letters on her machine.

There were not many business letters to write—one to the Metropolitan Museum people declining to present them with a charming little picture by Netscher which they wanted but did not wish to pay for; one to the Worcester Museum advising that progressive institution that, at the request of their director, four canvases had been shipped to them for inspection; several letters enclosing photographs of pictures desired by foreign experts; and a notification to one or two local millionaires that the Dankmere Galleries never shaded prices or exchanged canvases.

Having accomplished the last of the day's work remaining up to that particular minute, Jessie Vining leaned back in her chair, rubbed her pretty eyes, glanced partly around toward Lord Dankmere but checked herself, and, with her lips the slightest shade pursed up into a hint of primness, picked up the library novel which she had been reading during intervals of leisure.

It was mainly about a British Peer. The Peer did not resemble Dankmere in any particular; she had already noticed that. And now, as she read on, and, naturally enough, compared the ideal peer with the real one, the difference became painfully plain to her.

Could that short young man in rather mussy summer clothes, sorting prints over there, be a peer of the British realm? Was this young man, whom she had seen turning handsprings on the grass in the backyard, a belted Earl?

In spite of herself her short upper lip curled slightly as she turned from her book to glance at him. He looked up at the same moment, and smiled on meeting her eye—such a kindly yet diffident smile that she blushed a trifle.

"I say, Miss Vining, I've gone over all these prints and I can't find one that resembles the Hogarth portrait—if it is a Hogarth."

"Mr. Quarren thinks it is."

"I daresay he's quite right, but there's nothing here to prove it"; and he slapped the huge portfolio shut, laid his hands on the table, vaulted to the top of it, and sat down. Miss Vining resumed her reading.

"Miss Vining?"

"Yes?" very leisurely.

"How old do you think I am?"

"I beg your pardon——"

"How old do you think I am?"

"Really I hadn't thought about it, Lord Dankmere."

"Oh."

Miss Vining resumed her reading.

When the Earl had sat on top of the table long enough he got down and dropped into the depths of an armchair.

"Miss Vining," he said.

"Yes?" incuriously.

"Have you thought it out yet?"

"Thought out what, Lord Dankmere?"

"How old I am."

"Really," she retorted, half laughing, half vexed, "do you suppose that my mind is occupied in wondering what your age might be?"

"Isn't it?"

"Of course not."

"Don't you want to know?"

She began to laugh again:

"Why, if you wish to tell me of course it will interest me most profoundly." And she made him a graceful little bow.

"I'm thirty-three," he said.

"Thank you so much for telling me."

"You are welcome," he returned gravely. "Do you think I'm too old?"

"Too old for what?"

"Oh, for anything interesting."

"What do you mean by 'interesting'?"

But Lord Dankmere apparently did not know what he did mean for he made no answer.

After a little while he said: "Wouldn't it be odd if I ever have income enough to pay off my debts?"

"What?"

He repeated the observation.

"I don't know what you mean. You naturally expect to pay them, don't you?"

"I saw no chance of doing so before Mr. Quarren took hold of these pictures."

She was sorry for him:

"Are you very deeply in debt?"

He named the total of his liabilities and she straightened her young shoulders, horrified.

"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "I know plenty of chaps in England who are far worse off."

"But—that is terrible!" she faltered.

Dankmere waved his hand:

"It's not so bad. That show business let me in for a lot."

"Why did you ever do it?"

"I like it," he explained simply.

She flushed: "It seems strange for a—a man of your kind to sing comic songs and dance before an audience."

"Not at all. I've a friend, Exford by name—who goes about grinding a barrel-organ."

"Why?"

"He likes to do it.... I've another pal of sorts who chucked the Guards to become a milliner. He always did like to crochet and trim hats. Why not?—if he likes it!"

"It is not," said Jessie Vining, "my idea of a British peer."

"But for Heaven's sake, consider the peer! Now and then they have an idea of what they'd like to do. Why not let them do it and be happy?"

"Then they ought not to have been born to the peerage," she said firmly.

"Many of them wouldn't have been had anybody consulted them."

"You?"

"It's brought me nothing but debt, ridicule, abuse, and summonses."

"You couldn't resign, could you?" she said, smiling.

"I am resigned. Oh, well, I'd rather be what I am than anything else, I fancy.... If the Topeka Museum trustees purchase that Gainsborough I'll be out of debt fast enough."

"And then?" she inquired, still smiling.

"I don't know. I'd like to start another show."

"And leave Mr. Quarren?"

"What use am I? We'd share alike; he'd manage the business and I'd manage a musical comedy I'm writing after hours——"

He jumped up and went to the piano where for the next ten minutes he rattled off some lively and very commonplace music which to Jessie Vining sounded like everything she had ever before heard.

"Do you like it?" he asked hopefully, swinging around on his stool.

"It's—lively."

"You don't like it!"

"I—it seems—very entertaining," she said, reddening.

The Earl sat looking at her in silence for a moment; then he said:

"To care for anything and make a failure of it—can you beat it for straight misery, Miss Vining?"

"Oh, please don't speak that way. I really am no judge of musical composition."

He considered the key-board gloomily; and resting one well-shaped hand on it addressed empty space:

"What's the use of liking to do a thing if you can't do it? Why the deuce should a desire torment a man when there's no chance of accomplishment?"

The girl looked at him out of her pretty, distressed eyes but found no words suitable for the particular moment.

Dankmere dropped the other hand on the keys, touched a chord or two softly, then drifted into the old-time melody, "Shannon Water."

His voice was a pleasantly modulated barytone when he chose; he sang the quaint and lovely old song in perfect taste. Then, very lightly, he sang "The Harp," and afterward an old Breton song made centuries ago.

When he turned Miss Vining was resting her head on both hands, eyes lowered.

"Those were the real musicians and poets," he said—"not these Strausses and 'Girls from the Golden West.'"

"Will you sing some more?"

"Do you like my singing?"

"Very much."

So he idled for another half hour at the piano, recalling half-forgotten melodies of the Age of Faith, which, like all art of that immortal age, can never again be revived. For art alone was not enough in those days, the creator of the beautiful was also endowed with Faith; all the world was so endowed; and it was such an audience as never again can gather to inspire any maker of beautiful things.

Quarren came up to listen; Jessie prepared tea; and the last golden hour of the afternoon drifted away to the untroubled harmonies of other days.

Later, Jessie, halting on the steps to draw on her gloves, heard Dankmere open the door behind her and come out.

They descended the steps together, and she was already turning north with a nod of good-night, when he said:

"Are you walking?"

She was, to save carfare.

"May I go a little way?"

"Yes—if——"

Lord Dankmere waited, but she did not complete whatever it was she had meant to say. Then, very slowly she turned northward, and he went, too, grasping his walking-stick with unnecessary firmness and carrying himself with the determination and dignity of a man who is walking beside a pretty girl slightly taller than himself.

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