o much money,
it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?"

"You won't," he said gaily.

She tried to push the subject further, but he would not have it.

"I am all for free discussion," he said in the same tone; "but sometimes
debate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!"

And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed her
once more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touched
and shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense of
moral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoing
for the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing the
magnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout the
talk in the drawing-room.

The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning the
two who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue and
brilliant under the white forehead and the curls.

"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce,"
he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, and
turned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coaching
to-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?"

Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to the
drawing-room.

"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton.

"Probably," said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, looked
back, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to her
in the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural in
the man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also the
opponent.

Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulse
to assert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talk
in the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest,
and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism and
self-abandonment he had shown in their _tete-a-tete_.

* * * * *

"Why, there is Mr. Boyce," exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as they
entered the drawing-room.

There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastly
black and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost the
tragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, who
asked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man who
wants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, and