ceremony, eh?"

Michael looked away suddenly, and then answered with overdone unconcern:

"Yes--soon after the ceremony."

"I do wonder you had no curiosity to investigate her character further!"

"I had--but she did not appreciate my interest--and--after she had
gone--I was rather in a bad temper, and I reasoned myself into believing
she was probably right--also just then I wanted to join Latimer
Berkeley's expedition to China. I remember, his letter about it came by
the next morning's post--so I went--but do you know, Henry, I believe
that little girl made some lasting impression upon me. I believe, if she
had stayed, I should have been frantically in love with her--but she
went, so there it is!"

"Why don't you try to find her?" Henry asked.

"Perhaps I mean to some day. I have thought of doing so often, but
first China, and then one thing and another have stopped me--besides,
she may have fancied some other fellow by this time--the whole thing was
one of those colossal mistakes. If we could only have met
ordinarily--and not married in a hurry and then parted--like that."

"Has it never struck you she was rather young to be left to drift by
herself?"

"Yes, often--" Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I
behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry--in marrying her at all as
you said--but I would like to make it up to her some day--and I suppose
if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and
wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her--but, by Heaven, I
believe I should hate that!"

"You dog in the manger!"

"Yes, I am----"

And so the subject had ended.

And now Henry, third Lord Fordyce, was taking a mild cure at Carlsbad,
and had decided that in his leisure moments he would begin to write a
book--a project which had long simmered in his brain; but after two days
of sitting by the American party at each meal, a very strong desire to
converse with them--especially the one with the strange violet
eyes--overcame him; and with deliberate intention he scraped
acquaintance with Mr. Cloudwater in the exercise room of the Kaiserbad,
who, with polite ceremony, presented him that evening to his daughter
and her friend.

Sabine had been particularly silent and irritating, Moravia thought, and
as they went up to bed she scolded her about it.

"He is a perfect darling, Sabine," she declared, "and will do splendidly
to take walks with us and make the fourth. He is so la