t Geneva. She, in turn, regarded him with the coolest
friendliness, her own imagination busy with far other figures than that
of a would-be Government clerk.

Just as tea was being served, there sounded a voice welcome to no one
present, that of Lee Hannaford. He came forward with his wonted air of
preoccupation; a well-built man, in the prime of life, carefully
dressed, his lips close-set, his eyes seemingly vacant, but in reality
very attentive; a pinched ironical smile meant for cordiality. After
greetings, he stood before Miss Derwent's chair conversing with her; a
cup of tea in his steady hand, his body just bent, his forehead
curiously wrinkled--a habit of his when he talked for civility's sake
and nothing else. Hannaford could never be at ease in the presence of
his wife and daughter if others were there to observe him; he avoided
speaking to them, or, if obliged, did so with awkward formality.
Indeed, he was not fond of the society of women, and grew less so every
year. His tone with regard to them was marked with an almost
puritanical coldness; he visited any feminine breach of the proprieties
with angry censure. Yet, before his marriage, he had lived, if
anything, more laxly than the average man, and to his wife he had
confessed (strange memory nowadays), that he owed to her a moral
redemption. His morality, in fact, no one doubted; the suspicions Mrs.
Hannaford had once entertained when his coldness to her began, she now
knew to be baseless. Absorbed in meditations upon bloodshed and havoc,
he held high the ideal of chastity, and, in company agreeable to him,
could allude to it as the safeguard of civil life.

When he withdrew into the house, Mrs. Hannaford followed him. Olga,
always nervous when her father was near, sat silent. Piers Otway, with
a new reluctance, was rising to return to his studies, when Miss
Derwent checked him with a look.

"What a perfect afternoon!"

"It is, indeed," he murmured, his eyes falling.

"Olga, are you too tired for another walk?"

"I? Oh, no! I should enjoy it."

"Do you think"--Irene looked roguishly at her cousin--"Mr. Otway would
forgive us if we begged him to come, too?"

Olga smiled, and glanced at the young man with certainty that he would
excuse himself.

"We can but ask," she said.

And Piers, to her astonishment, at once assented. He did so with sudden
colour in his cheeks, avoiding Olga's look.

So they set forth together; and, little by little, Piers