ton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he
would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?"

"Well," said Clifford, "father does n't like to see me there."

Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment
upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?"

"Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He has n't said so--in so many
words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying
him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too."

"To stop coming to see her?"

"I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows
everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own.

"Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?"

"She knew it was not father coming in."

"Then why did you go?"

Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And
besides, she told me to go, at any rate."

"Did she think it was I?" Acton asked.

"She did n't say so."

Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you did n't go," he presently said;
"you came back."

"I could n't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was
locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the
confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no
use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I
did n't want to be hiding away from my own father. I could n't stand
it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little
flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, did n't she?" Clifford added, in
the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently
clouded by the sense of his own discomfort.

"Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one
remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a
good deal annoyed."

"Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels
that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely
just in his impressions, "Eugenia does n't care for anything!"

Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at
last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added,
"Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the
Baroness?"

"No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand.

CHAPTER X

The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport
witne