pages of
her book.

"And--and I want to tell you that I am sorry for the way I spoke to
you--that night," she swiftly said. Anne did not look at him. "Women
don't understand things that are perfectly simple to men, I suppose--I
mean--that is, Jack said--"

"That you ought to apologize? It was very like him"--and Colonel
Musgrave smiled to think how like John Charteris it was. "Jack is quite
wonderful," he observed.

She looked up, saying impulsively, "Rudolph, you don't know how happy he
makes me."

"Heartless woman, and would you tempt me to end the tragedy of my life
with a Shakesperian fifth act of poisonings and assassination? I spurn
you, temptress. For, after all, it was an unpleasantly long while ago we
went mad for each other," Musgrave announced, and he smiled. "I fancy
that the boy and girl we knew of are as dead now as Nebuchadnezzar.
'Marian's married, and I sit here alive and merry at'--well, not at
forty year, unluckily--"

"If you continue in that heartless strain, I shall go into the house,"
Mrs. Charteris protested.

Her indignation was exaggerated, but it was not altogether feigned;
women cannot quite pardon a rejected suitor who marries and is content.
They wish him all imaginable happiness and prosperity, of course; and
they are honestly interested in his welfare; but it seems unexpectedly
callous in him. And besides his wife is so perfectly commonplace.

Mrs. Charteris, therefore, added, with emphasis: "I am really
disgracefully happy."

"Glad to hear it," said Musgrave, placidly. "So am I."

"Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph, you are hopeless!" she sighed. "And you used to
make such a nice lover!"

Mrs. Charteris looked out over the river, which was like melting gold,
and for a moment was silent.

"I was frightfully in love with you, Rudolph," she said, as half in
wonder. "After--after that horrible time when my parents forced us to
behave rationally, I wept--oh, I must have wept deluges! I firmly
intended to pine away to an early grave. And that second time I liked
you too, but then--there was Jack, you see."

"H'm!" said Colonel Musgrave; "yes, I see."

"I want you to continue to be friends with Jack," she went on, and her
face lighted up, and her voice grew tender. "He has the artistic
temperament, and naturally that makes him sensitive, and a trifle
irritable at times. It takes so little to upset him, you see, for he
feels so acutely what he calls the discords of life. I think most men
a