been particularly good I've even heard extracts from your letters. I
can't possibly treat you as a stranger!"

"I--I ought to apologise. I hope you have not been bored."

He looked up as he spoke, and for the first time met the full gaze of
Jean's eyes--those eyes which were a revelation of beauty even to dull
elderly members of her own sex. Gloucester's gaze lingered with an
intensity which held her bound in return; but mingling with his
eagerness was an expression of humility, almost of awe, which Jean found
strangely disconcerting. She lowered her lids at his glance, forgetful
for once of the effect of fringed ladies, and made her reply with a
little tremble of nervousness in her voice.

"Not at all bored, but very interested. Are you glad to be back in
England; and how does it look to you after your long absence? Are you
going to stay at home?"

"I'm glad--immensely glad! Yes, I shall stay," he said with abrupt,
almost violent emphasis. Then more quietly, "The country looks--_neat_!
Such neat little fields on either side the line. I should grow
impatient in the country, but London enthrals. I love the dull old
roar, and the smoke, and the misty light of this weak little sun. A man
who has lived long abroad seldom cares for rural England, but he never
loses his love of London. It is the best of its kind--there's something
in that; but the country is tame."

Jean mused, a smile twitching her lips.

"I have always said that if I could choose an exact site for my home of
the future I'd have the front windows facing west over a range of
mountains, the bigger the better--the Himalayas for choice--and the back
windows over Piccadilly! Our tastes agree, it appears; but for pity's
sake don't let our sun hear you speaking in such disrespectful tones.
It is so touchy and difficile that it is capable of sulking and hiding
for weeks together, and we have been paying it such compliments these
last days. `Blazing!' We preferred to stay indoors this afternoon
because it was `blazing.' Soon we shall declare that it is impossible
to stay in town, and shall fly away to the country. In a couple of
weeks London will be emptied of every one who is not chained to a desk."

"Where shall you go?" he asked directly.

Jean glanced at him, and discovered to her surprise that the question
was no idle inquiry put to help in a lagging conversation, but a request
for information seriously desired. She was not offended, bu