nt quietly to the door of the
room containing the picture, intending to lock it up till further
consideration, whatever he might think of her. But on casting her eyes
round the apartment the painting was gone. The captain, wisely taking
the current when it served, already had it in the gallery, where he
was to be seen bending attentively over it, arranging the lights and
directing Dare with the instruments. On leaving he thanked her, and said
that he had obtained a splendid copy. Would she look at it?

Paula was severe and icy. 'Thank you--I don't wish to see it,' she said.

De Stancy bowed and departed in a glow of triumph; satisfied,
notwithstanding her frigidity, that he had compassed his immediate aim,
which was that she might not be able to dismiss from her thoughts him
and his persevering desire for the shadow of her face during the next
four-and-twenty-hours. And his confidence was well founded: she could
not.

'I fear this Divine Comedy will be slow business for us, captain,' said
Dare, who had heard her cold words.

'O no!' said De Stancy, flushing a little: he had not been perceiving
that the lad had the measure of his mind so entirely as to gauge his
position at any moment. But he would show no shamefacedness. 'Even if it
is, my boy,' he answered, 'there's plenty of time before the other can
come.'

At that hour and minute of De Stancy's remark 'the other,' to look
at him, seemed indeed securely shelved. He was sitting lonely in his
chambers far away, wondering why she did not write, and yet hoping
to hear--wondering if it had all been but a short-lived strain of
tenderness. He knew as well as if it had been stated in words that her
serious acceptance of him as a suitor would be her acceptance of him as
an architect--that her schemes in love would be expressed in terms of
art; and conversely that her refusal of him as a lover would be neatly
effected by her choosing Havill's plans for the castle, and returning
his own with thanks. The position was so clear: he was so well walled in
by circumstances that he was absolutely helpless.

To wait for the line that would not come--the letter saying that, as
she had desired, his was the design that pleased her--was still the only
thing to do. The (to Somerset) surprising accident that the committee of
architects should have pronounced the designs absolutely equal in point
of merit, and thus have caused the final choice to revert after all to
Paula, had been a j