rdened into a solid cake before the
friends emerged, arm in arm, and followed Deena to the table. French
drew out her chair with that slight exaggeration of courtesy that lent
a charm to all he did, and with his hands still on the bar he bent
over her and said--smiling the while at Simeon:

"I have been telling your husband of what I hinted to you this
afternoon, Mrs. Ponsonby; the expedition to Patagonia and his chance
to join it."

Simeon's brow contracted. It was disagreeable to him to have momentous
affairs like his own discussed by anticipation with Deena--Deena, who
was only a woman, and he now feared a silly one at that.

"It is no secret, then!" said Simeon, contemptuously, and added,
turning to his wife: "Be good enough not to speak of this before the
servant; I should be sorry to have the faculty hear of such a thing
from anyone but me."

She grew scarlet, but managed to murmur a word of acquiescence.
Stephen looked amazed; he thought he must be mistaken in the rudeness
of his friend's manner, and then began making imaginary excuses for
him. Of course, the tea table was not the place for confidences, and,
naturally, a man would prefer telling such things privately to his
wife, and the rebuke was meant for him, not for Mrs. Ponsonby. How
lovely she looked--even prettier than in those smart clothes she had
worn in the morning. He wondered whether Ponsonby knew how absolutely
perfect she was.

The servant was much in the room, and the talk turned on the
progressive spirit of Argentina, its railroads, its great natural
resources, its vast agricultural development. It was a dialogue
between the men, for Simeon addressed himself exclusively to
French--what could a woman know of what goes to make the wealth of
nations!--and, as for Stephen, he was still uncomfortable from the
failure of his first effort to bring her into the discussion.

When tea was over Simeon pushed back his chair and was about to stalk
from the room, when he remembered that French was his guest, and
halted to let him go out first, but when French waited beside him to
let Deena pass, an expression of impatience crossed her husband's
face, as if the precious half seconds he could so ill spare from his
work, in order to reach conclusions, were being sacrificed to dancing
master ceremonials.

Deena sat sewing till Stephen came to bid her good-night.

"I think it is all arranged," he said, but without the joyousness of
his first announcemen