interest--coerce men like Melrose? He's
giving you away, every month he exists."

"Well, Tatham's at it," said Barton quietly; "we're all at it. And
there's a new agent just appointed. Something to be hoped from him."

"Who is it?"

"You didn't hear us discussing him last night? A man called Claude
Faversham."

"Claude Faversham? A tall, dark fellow--writes a little--does a little
law--but mostly unemployed? Oh, I know him perfectly. Faversham? You
don't mean it!" Boden threw himself back in his chair with a sarcastic
lip, and relit his pipe. As he watched the spirals of smoke he recalled
the few incidents of his acquaintance with the young man. They had both
been among the original members of a small club in London, frequented
by men of letters and junior barristers. Faversham had long since dropped
out of the club, and was now the companion, so Boden understood, of much
richer men, and a great frequenter of the Stock Exchange, where money is
mysteriously made without working for it. That fact alone was enough for
Cyril Boden. He felt an instinctive, almost a fanatical, antipathy toward
the new agent. On the one side the worshippers of the Unbought and the
Unpriced; on the other Mammon and all his troop. It was so that Boden
habitually envisaged his generation. It was so, and by no other test,
that he divided the sheep from the goats.

Meanwhile, Lydia Penfold, driving a diminutive pony, was slowly
approaching the castle through the avenue of splendid oaks which led up
to it. Faversham was walking beside her. He had overtaken her at the
beginning of the avenue, and had sent on his motor that he might have
the pleasure of her society.

The daintiness of her white dress, with all its pretty details, the touch
of blue in her hat, and at her waist, delighted his eyes. It pleased him
that there was not a trace in her of Bohemian carelessness in these
respects. Everything was simple, but everything was considered. She knew
her own beauty; that was clear. It gave her self-possession; but, so far
as he could see, without a trace of conceit. He had never met a young
girl with whom he could talk so easily.

She had greeted him with her most friendly smile. But it seemed to him
nevertheless that she was a little pensive and overcast.

"You dined here last night?" he asked her. "Did the lion roar properly?"

"Magnificently. You weren't there?"

"No. Undershaw put down his foot. I shan't submit much longer!"

"You're