to him, I found
he knew it quite well. You will, will you not, forgive my ignorance in
having no better knowledge of the elder Mr. Somerset's works than a dim
sense of his fame as a painter? But I was going to say that my father
would much like to include you in his personal acquaintance, and wishes
me to ask if you will give him the pleasure of lunching with him to-day.
My cousin John, whom you once knew, was a great favourite of his, and
used to speak of you sometimes. It will be so kind if you can come. My
father is an old man, out of society, and he would be glad to hear the
news of town.'

Somerset said he was glad to find himself among friends where he had
only expected strangers; and promised to come that day, if she would
tell him the way.

That she could easily do. The short way was across that glade he saw
there--then over the stile into the wood, following the path till it
came out upon the turnpike-road. He would then be almost close to the
house. The distance was about two miles and a half. But if he thought it
too far for a walk, she would drive on to the town, where she had been
going when he came, and instead of returning straight to her father's
would come back and pick him up.

It was not at all necessary, he thought. He was a walker, and could find
the path.

At this moment a servant came to tell Miss De Stancy that the telegraph
was calling her.

'Ah--it is lucky that I was not gone again!' she exclaimed. 'John seldom
reads it right if I am away.'

It now seemed quite in the ordinary course that, as a friend of her
father's, he should accompany her to the instrument. So up they went
together, and immediately on reaching it she applied her ear to the
instrument, and began to gather the message. Somerset fancied himself
like a person overlooking another's letter, and moved aside.

'It is no secret,' she said, smiling. '"Paula to Charlotte," it begins.'

'That's very pretty.'

'O--and it is about--you,' murmured Miss De Stancy.

'Me?' The architect blushed a little.

She made no answer, and the machine went on with its story. There was
something curious in watching this utterance about himself, under his
very nose, in language unintelligible to him. He conjectured whether it
were inquiry, praise, or blame, with a sense that it might reasonably
be the latter, as the result of his surreptitious look into that blue
bedroom, possibly observed and reported by some servant of the house.

'"Di