should feel. She and he had liked each other from the first,
and it was quite natural that she should be glad to see him at Hurley.

That was what he thought as he strolled to his rooms preparatory to
dressing for some function of the night. He flattered himself that he
was able to look at any situation straight in the face, so to speak.
He flattered himself that he was not a man to be led away by vanity.
He was, as a rule, on very good terms with himself, but he was rather
inclined to undervalue than overestimate the distinction which he
enjoyed among his fellow-men. And the result of his due consideration of
his last meeting with Phyllis was to make him feel that he had never
met a girl who was quite so nice; but he also felt that, if he were to
assume from the gladness which she had manifested not merely at being
with him that day, but at the prospect of meeting him up the river, that
he had made an impression upon her heart, he would be assuming too much.

But all the same, he could not help wishing that Ella had asked him
to go to The Mooring on Tuesday rather than Thursday; and he felt when
Tuesday arrived that the hot and dusty town with its ceaseless roll of
gloomy festivities contained nothing for him that he would not willingly
part withal in exchange for an hour or two beside the still waters of
the Thames in the neighborhood of Hurley.

Stephen Linton had bought The Mooring when his wife had taken a fancy
to it the previous year, when she had had an attack of that river fever
which sooner or later takes hold upon Londoners, making them ready to
sell all their possessions and encamp on the banks of the Thames. It had
been a great delight to her to furnish that lovely old house according
to her taste, making each room a picture of consistency in decoration
and furniture, and it had been a great delight to her to watch the
garden being laid out after the most perfect eighteenth-century pattern,
with its green terraces and clipped hedges. She had gone so far as to
live in the house for close upon a whole fortnight the previous autumn.
Since that time the caretaker had found it a trifle too cold in the
winter and too hot in the summer, he had complained to Mrs. Linton. But
she knew that there is no pleasing caretakers; she had not been put out
of favor with the place; she hoped to spend at least a week under its
roof before the end of the season, and perhaps another week before
starting for Scotland in the autu