hands warmly with him.

"Delightful spot!" exclaimed the elder, with more than his accustomed
suavity. "Charming little house!--I hope I shan't be wasting your time?"

"Of course not. We shall have some tea presently. How glad I am to see
you!--I must introduce you to Mrs. Hannaford."

"Delighted, my dear boy! How well you look!--stop though; you are _not_
looking very well----"

Piers broke into extravagant gaiety.

CHAPTER VI

There had only been time to satisfy Daniel's profound and touching
interest in his brother's work for the examination when the tea bell
rang, and they went down to the drawing-room. Piers noticed that Mrs.
Hannaford had made a special toilet; so rarely did a new acquaintance
enter the house that she was a little fluttered in receiving Daniel
Otway, whose manners evidently impressed and pleased her. Had he known
his brother well, Piers would have understood that this exhibition of
fine courtesy meant a peculiar interest on Daniel's part. Such interest
was not difficult to excite; there needed only an agreeable woman's
face of a type not familiar to him, in circumstances which offered the
chance of intimacy. And Mrs. Hannaford, as it happened, made peculiar
appeal to Daniel's sensibilities. As they conversed, her thin cheeks
grew warm, her eyes gathered light; she unfolded a charm of personality
barely to be divined in her usual despondent mood.

Daniel's talk was animated, varied, full of cleverness and character.
No wonder if his hostess thought that she had never met so delightful a
man. Incidentally, in quite the permissible way, he made known that he
was a connoisseur of art; he spoke of his travels on the track of this
or that old master, of being consulted by directors of great Galleries,
by wealthy amateurs. He was gracefully anecdotic; he allowed one to
perceive a fine enthusiasm. And Piers listened quite as attentively as
Mrs. Hannaford, for he had no idea how Daniel made his living. The
kernel of truth in this fascinating representation was that Daniel
Otway, among other things, collected _bric-a-brac_ for a certain
dealer, and at times himself disposed of it to persons with more money
than knowledge or taste. At the age of thirty-eight this was the point
he had reached in a career which once promised brilliant things. In
whatever profession he had steadily pursued, Daniel would have come to
the front; but precisely that steady pursuit was the thing impossible
to him. His