own affinity! And _what_ an affinity! A saucy
soubrette who might easily have just stepped from the _coulisse_ of a
Parisian theater!

Yates looked at Drusilla. What an awful blow was impending! She never
could have suspected it, but there, in that boat, sat her future
stepmother in cap and apron!--his own future stepmother-in-law!

And in the misery of that moment's realization John Chillingham Yates
showed the material of which he was constructed.

"Dear," he said gently.

"Do you mean me?" asked Drusilla, looking up in frank surprise.

And at the same time she saw on his face a look which she had never
before encountered there. It was the shadow of trouble; and it drew her
to her feet instinctively.

"What is it, Jack?" she asked.

She had never before called him anything but Mr. Yates.

"What is it?" she repeated, turning away beside him along the leafy path;
and with every word another year seemed, somehow, to be added to her
youth. "Has anything happened, Jack? Are you unhappy--or ill?"

He did not speak; she walked beside him, regarding him with wistful eyes.

So there was more of love than happiness, after all; she began to half
understand it in a vague way as she watched his somber face. There
certainly was more of love than a mere lazy happiness; there was
solicitude and warm concern, and desire to comfort, to protect.

"Jack," she said tremulously.

He turned and took her unresisting hands. A quick thrill shot through
her. Yes, there _was_ more to love than she had expected.

"Are you unhappy?" she asked. "Tell me. I can't bear to see you this way.
I--I never did--before."

"Will you love me; Drusilla?"

"Yes--yes, I will, Jack."

"Dearly?"

"I do--dearly." The first blush that ever tinted her cheek spread and
deepened.

"Will you marry me, Drusilla?"

"Yes.... You frighten me."

She trembled, suddenly, in his arms. Surely there were more things to
love than she had dreamed of in her philosophy. She looked up as he bent
nearer, understanding that she was to be kissed, awaiting the event which
suddenly loomed up freighted with terrific significance.

There was a silence, a sob.

"Jack--darling--I--I love you so!"

Flavilla was sketching on her camp-stool when they returned.

"I'm horridly hungry," she said. "It's luncheon time, isn't it? And, by
the way, it's all right about that maid. She was on her way to serve in
the tea pavilion at Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt's bazaar, and her