keep us all respectable! is Rudolph's notion of a sensible
morning-prayer. So he just preferred to see nothing and bleat out
edifying axioms. That is one of his favorite tricks. No, it was a comedy
for my benefit, I tell you. He will allow a deal for the artistic
temperament, no doubt, but he doesn't suppose you fetch along a
white-lace parasol when you go to watch a sunset--especially a parasol
he gave me last month."

"Indeed," protested Mr. Charteris, "he saw nothing. I was too quick for
him."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I saw him looking at it. Accordingly, I
paid no attention to what he said. But you--ah, Jack, you were splendid!
I suppose we shall have to elope at once now, though?"

Charteris gave her no immediate answer. "I am not quite sure, Patricia,
that your husband is not--to a certain extent--in the right. Believe me,
he did not know you were about. He approached me in a perfectly
sensible manner, and exhibited commendable self-restraint; he has played
a difficult part to admiration. I could not have done it better myself.
And it is not for us who have been endowed with gifts denied to Rudolph,
to reproach him for lacking the finer perceptions and sensibilities of
life. Yet, I must admit that, for the time, I was a little hurt by his
evident belief that we would allow our feeling for each other--which is
rather beyond his comprehension, isn't it, dear?--to be coerced by
mercenary considerations."

"Oh, Rudolph is just a jackass-fool, anyway." She was not particularly
interested in the subject.

"He can't help that, you know," Charteris reminded her, gently; then, he
asked, after a little: "I suppose it is all true?"

"That what is true?"

"About your having no money of your own?" He laughed, but she could see
how deeply he had been pained by Musgrave's suspicions. "I ask, because,
as your husband has discovered, I am utterly sordid, my lady, and care
only for your wealth."

"Ah, how can you expect a man like that to understand--you? Why, Jack,
how ridiculous in you to be hurt by what the brute thinks! You're as
solemn as an owl, my dear. Yes, it's true enough. My father was not very
well pleased with us--and that horrid will--Ah, Jack, Jack, how
grotesque, how characteristic it was, his thinking such things would
influence you--you, of all men, who scarcely know what money is!"

"It was even more grotesque I should have been pained by his thinking
it," Charteris said, sadly. "But what would y