perhaps, understand how Fabian looks now to the eyes that are gazing
wistfully upon him from out the semi-darkness.

Moving her gown to one side, Portia (impelled to this action by some
impulsive force) says, in a low tone:

"Come and sit here, Fabian," motioning gently to the seat beside her.

But, thanking her with great courtesy, he declines her invitation, and,
with an unchanged face, goes on with his conversation with Sir Mark.

Portia, flushing hotly in the kindly dark, shrinks back within herself,
and linking her fingers tightly together, tries bravely to crush the
mingled feelings of shame and regret that rise within her breast.

"I can stand almost anything myself, I confess, but insolence," Sir Mark
is saying, _a propos_ of the intoxicated old secretary. "It takes it out
of one so. I have put up with the most gross carelessness rather than
change any man, but insolence from that class is insufferable. I
suppose," says Sir Mark, meditatively, shifting his glass from his left
to his right eye, "it is because one can't return it."

"One can dismiss the fellow, though," says Sir Christopher, still
fuming. "And go Slyme shall. After all my kindness to him, too, to speak
as he did to-night! The creature is positively without gratitude."

"Don't regret that," says Dicky Browne, sympathetically. "_You_ are
repining because he declines to notice your benefits; but think of what
Wordsworth says--

'I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds,
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the _gratitude_ of men
Has oftener left me mourning.'

Look here, Sir Christopher, my experience is, that if once you do a
fellow a good turn he'll stick to you through life, and make you feel
somehow as if he belonged to you, and _that_ isn't pleasant, is it?"

Dicky pauses. Wordsworth is his strong point, and freely he quotes and
misquotes him on all occasions. Indeed, I am of the opinion he is the
only poet Dicky ever read in his life, and that because he was obliged
to.

"I have done with Slyme," goes on Sir Christopher, hotly. "Yes,
_forever_. Now, not a word, Fabian; when my mind is made up (as you all
know) it is made up, and nothing can alter it." This is just what they
do _not_ all know. "As for you," continues Sir Christopher, indignantly,
addressing himself solely to Fabian, "you plead for that miserable old
sot out of nothing but sheer obstinacy--not because you like him. Now,