e red.

"And they weren't far wrong," he said. "Well, I shall go to bed, Jim.
Your conversation is too sensational."

"Good-night. Mind you let me know when you have made up your mind,"
said Jim.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was this certainty that he had got to make up his mind, whereas
till to-day he had believed that his mind was made up, that Lindfield
carried upstairs with his bedroom candle. But, unlike that useful
article, which could be put out at will, the question refused to be
put out, and burnt with a disconcerting and gem-like clearness. It
was perfectly true, and he confessed it to himself, that for the last
two days he had distinctly preferred to cultivate this wonderful
quick-growing friendship which had shot up between him and Jeannie,
rather than bring things to a head with Daisy.

He had meant while down here to ask her to marry him; now, if he
looked that intention in the face, he was aware that though it was
still there (even as he had begun to tell Mrs. Halton that afternoon),
it had moved away from the immediate foreground, and stood waiting at
a further distance. The cats and Jim Crowfoot, he told himself with
some impatience, were altogether at fault when they so charmingly said
that he had to make up his mind between aunt and niece. It was not
that at all; the only question with which the making up of his mind
was concerned was whether he was going to ask Daisy now, to-morrow, to
be his wife. And the moment he asked himself that question it was
already answered. But that he did not know.

As always, he was quite honest with himself, and proceeded ruthlessly
to find out what had occasioned the postponement of his intention.
That was not hard to answer; the answer had already been indirectly
given. It was the enchantment of this new friendship which had forced
itself into the foreground.

That friendship, however, was now agreed upon and ratified, and the
postponed intention should come forward again. But these last few hours
had made him feel uncertain about that friendship. There was no use in
denying it; she had been quite different since they came in from the
punt. How maddening and how intoxicating women were! How they forced you
to wonder and speculate about them, to work your brain into a fever with
guessing what was going on in theirs.

He turned over in bed with his face to the wall, and shut his eyes with
the firm and laudable intention of not bothering any more about it, but
of