this gentleman...."

He was on his way to Holiday Hill the next afternoon, when at the very
gate he met Jacqueline coming out. She laughed; rather consciously for
Jacqueline. "I've been returning that call," she said.

"So I see. Has Mrs. Farwell come, then?"

"Mrs. Farwell? Oh, no. She never comes. Mr. Farwell isn't here either,
just now," she said innocently. "So I dropped in to--to keep Mr.
Channing company." She began to flush, realizing that she had betrayed
herself. "We were practising his songs together. We--we often do." She
stammered a little.

"I see," he said again, lightly. It was not his policy to discourage
confidences. "So Mr. Channing writes songs, as well as novels?"

"Oh, wonderful ones, Phil! You'd love them. I do wish you could hear
them."

"I'd like to. Why not bring me the next time you come to practise?"

She looked down; then her eyes met his frankly. "I'd rather not, Phil.
He wouldn't like it. Geniuses are peculiar. You see, we sing better when
we're not disturbed. You know how that is, don't you?"

His heart contracted with sudden sympathy. He knew only too well "how it
was." It seemed to him that lately his life was one long conspiracy
against Fate to find Kate Kildare alone. Abroad, the eyes of the world
seemed always turned upon them; at home she was surrounded by an
impregnable barrier of daughters. On the rare occasions when he did
manage to achieve the coveted _solitude a deux_, their talk was of
farming, of the parish, of business, and in the end always of his
father, his father. Her dependence upon him, her affection for him, was
evident, but there was a curiously impersonal, almost absent-minded
quality about it that sometimes chilled Philip and his budding hopes.
When she spoke out her inmost thoughts, even when she took his hand or
laid her arm across his shoulders with the impulsive, caressing gestures
that were as common to her as to Jacqueline, he had the feeling that she
was thinking of another man.

Philip was well fitted to understand Jacqueline just then. "My dear," he
said quietly, "are you in love with Mr. Channing?"

The question took her by surprise. She paled, and then the lovely rose
came over her face again in a hot flood. "Oh, yes, _yes_, Phil!" she
cried eagerly. "Do come and ride beside me, and let me tell you all
about it. I've been wanting dreadfully to tell somebody who would
understand. You're _such_ a comfortable sort of person."

Philip's greatest