her superb black hair reaching to her knees--as he had often seen it
when she was a little girl--her blue eyes shining with a strange light,
her lips smiling, her white arms held out....

"Sara may not be a happy girl," said Pensee suddenly, "but she is a
clever one."

Reckage started from his reverie.

"How odd!" he exclaimed, surprised into candour. "I was thinking of her
at that very moment."

Pensee had read as much on his face, but she did not tell him so.

"I feel for her very much," she observed instead. "She must be the
greatest possible comfort to her father, although he may not realise it.
Yet he is forcing on the engagement to Marshire. She keeps up in the
most courageous way, but she has ideals, and no persuasion will induce
her to change them."

He turned red, and said, looking out of the window--

"Ideals do no harm when, for some reason or other, we are unable to
carry them out."

"I cannot imagine what she will do, or how she will bear her life if
things continue as they are."

"What things?"

"She is like a slave to Lord Garrow. She is with him constantly, reading
to him, and doing everything for him. She will be a cruel loss to his
home when she marries."

"I rather revel at the thought of the dismay which will attend her final
capture of Marshire."

"I used to hope that you perhaps----"

He glanced up and smiled with an air of satisfaction.

"I don't like the appearance of measuring myself against Marshire....
But--but he certainly seems, in character, the culminating point of
mediocrity! In fact, Mr. Disraeli, whom I seldom quote, so described
him."

"What a husband for that brilliant, affectionate girl! She likes all
that is simple and grand. A real love--if it were a happy one--would
make her even more charming, and if it caused her suffering, it would
make her even more noble. But failing this, there will be a frightful
void in her life."

Reckage, whose imagination began to play round this thought, replied
with unusual seriousness--

"I should be horribly grieved to see any declension from her better
nature. I think I am getting to think less of mere social power. I feel
more than I used to do that, if one could literally _live_ one's
theories on moral strength, it would be a complete refutation of these
ideas about the influence of money or a big accidental position. Old
Harding was right when he said at luncheon to-day that disinterestedness
counted very highly in the p