e from his.

"We had better have been handing nails," he said, "but you wouldn't give
us any work." Then, as Meredith and Delafield approached, he seized the
opportunity of saying, in a low voice:

"Am I not to have a word?"

She turned with composure, though it seemed to him she was very pale.

"Have you just come back from the Isle of Wight?"

"This morning." He looked her in the eyes. "You got my letters?"

"Yes, but I have had no time for writing. I hope you found your mother
well."

"Very well, thank you. You have been hard at work?"

"Yes, but the Duchess and Mr. Delafield have made it all easy."

And so on, a few more insignificant questions and answers.

"I must go," said Delafield, coming up to them, "unless there is any
more work for me to do. Good-bye, Major, I congratulate you. They have
given you a fine piece of work."

Warkworth made a little bow, half ironical. Confound the fellow's grave
and lordly ways! He did not want his congratulations.

He lingered a little, sorely, full of rage, yet not knowing how to go.

Lord Lackington's eyes ceased to blaze, and the kitten ventured once
more to climb upon his knee. Meredith, too, found a comfortable
arm-chair, and presently tried to beguile the kitten from his neighbor.
Julie sat erect between them, very silent, her thin, white hands on her
lap, her head drooped a little, her eyes carefully restrained from
meeting Warkworth's. He meanwhile leaned against the mantel-piece,
irresolute.

Meredith, it was clear, made himself quite happy and at home in the
little drawing-room. The lame child came in and took a stool beside him.
He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the intervals of
holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in some proofs of his
which he had brought back. Lord Lackington, now quite himself again,
went back to dreams, smiling over them, and quite unaware that the
kitten had been slyly ravished from him. The little woman in black sat
knitting in the background. It was all curiously intimate and domestic,
only Warkworth had no part in it.

"Good-bye, Miss Le Breton," he said, at last, hardly knowing his own
voice. "I am dining out."

She rose and gave him her hand. But it dropped from his like a thing
dead and cold. He went out in a sudden suffocation of rage and pain; and
as he walked in a blind haste to Cureton Street, he still saw her
standing in the old-fashioned, scented room, so coldly graceful, with
those pro