r
he would be sure it hurt! A week, you say? Heigh ho! what an age!'

'Be kind to him,' said Catherine, discreetly veiling her own feelings,
and caressing the curly golden head as they moved towards the door.
'He's a poor lone don, and he was so good to Robert!'

'Excellent reason for you, Mrs. Elsmere,' said Rose, pouting; 'but----'

Her further remarks were cut short by the sound of the front-door bell.

'Oh, I had forgotten Mr. Newcome!' cried Catherine, starting. 'Come down
soon, Rose, and help us through.'

'Who is he?' inquired Rose sharply.

'A High Church clergyman near here, whom Robert asked to tea this
afternoon,' said Catherine, escaping.

Rose took her hat off very leisurely. The prospect downstairs did not
seem to justify despatch. She lingered and thought of 'Lohengrin' and
Albani, of the crowd of artistic friends that had escorted her to
Waterloo, of the way in which she had been applauded the night before,
of the joys of playing Brahms with a long-haired pupil of Rubinstein's,
who had dropped on one knee and kissed her hand at the end of it, etc.
During the last six weeks the colours of 'this threadbare world' had
been freshening before her in marvellous fashion. And now, as she stood
looking out, the quiet fields opposite, the sight of a cow pushing its
head through the hedge, the infinite sunset sky, the quiet of the house,
filled her with a sudden depression. How dull it all seemed--how wanting
in the glow of life!

CHAPTER XII

Meanwhile downstairs a curious little scene was passing, watched by
Langham, who, in his usual anti-social way, had retreated into a corner
of his own as soon as another visitor appeared. Beside Catherine sat a
Ritualist clergyman in cassock and long cloak--a saint clearly, though
perhaps, to judge from the slight restlessness of movement that seemed
to quiver through him perpetually, an irritable one. But he had the
saint's wasted unearthly look, the ascetic brow high and narrow, the
veins showing through the skin, and a personality as magnetic as it was
strong.

Catherine listened to the new-comer, and gave him his tea, with an
aloofness of manner which was not lost on Langham. 'She is the
Thirty-nine Articles in the flesh!' he said to himself. 'For her there
must neither be too much nor too little. How can Elsmere stand it?'

Elsmere apparently was not perfectly happy. He sat balancing his long
person over the arm of a chair listening to the recital of