y and
ruined her own prospects," said Mrs. Gouverneur. "Your aunt told me
to-day that Dr. Gunstone thinks she is going to die of her
disappointment about Charley unless the engagement can be renewed. But
Phillida has determined not to allow a renewal of it. She's always doing
something foolish. Now, eat a little dinner, or take your coffee at
least."

"Leave the things here, mother. May be I'll eat after a while."

Half an hour later Mrs. Gouverneur, uneasy regarding Philip, returned to
his library to find the food as she had left it.

On inquiry she learned that Philip had just gone out. Whither and for
what purpose he had sallied forth dinnerless she could not divine, and
the strangeness of his action did not reassure her. She was on the point
of speaking to her husband about it, but he had so little in common with
Philip, and was of a temper so fixed and stolid, that his advice would
not have availed anything. It never did avail anything certainly in the
first hour or two after dinner.

XXXIX.

PHILIP IMPROVES AN OPPORTUNITY.

The intimacy between Millard and Philip Gouverneur had long languished.
Philip was naturally critical of Charley after he became the accepted
lover of Phillida, and their relations were not bettered by the breaking
off of the engagement. Phillida's cousin felt that he owed it to her not
to seem to condemn her in the matter by a too great intimacy with the
lover who had jilted or been jilted by her, nobody could tell which, not
even the pair themselves. Moreover Philip had for years taken a faint
pleasure in considering himself as a possible suitor to Phillida. He
found the enjoyment of a solitary cigar enhanced by his ruminations
regarding the possibilities of a life glorified--no weaker word could
express his thought--by the companionship of Phillida, little as he had
ever hoped for such a culmination of his wishes. But this love for
Phillida served to complicate his relations with Millard. So that it had
now been long since he had visited The Graydon. Nevertheless on this
evening of his sudden and dinnerless departure from home, the night
clerk remembered him and let him go up to apartment 79 without the
ceremony of sending his card.

Millard, who was writing, received Philip with some surprise and a
curiosity mixed with solicitude regarding the purpose of his call. But
he put up his pen and spoke with something of the old cordial manner
that had won the heart of Gouverneur s