temperament.

Alice returned just as Miss Normaine and Arnold came up, and they all
went back together, collecting the rest of the party as they went to
their train. It was a vivacious progress along the homeward route. Paeans
of victory and the flash of Roman candles filled the air. At one time,
when some particular demonstration was absorbing the attention of the
men, Miss Normaine found her niece at her side.

"Aunt Katharine, you know I've always adored you," she said, with a
repose of manner that disguised a trifle of apprehension.

"Yes, I know, Alice, but I really can't promise to take you anywhere
to-morrow. I--"

"I don't want you to--I only want to confide in you."

"Oh, dear, what have you been doing now?"

"I think," replied Alice, while the chorus of sound about them swelled
almost to sublimity, "that I've been getting engaged--to Eugene Herbert,
you know."

"Only to Eugene Herbert," breathed Miss Normaine. "I'm glad it occurred
to you to mention it. But why didn't you say so before?"

"It didn't--it wasn't--before," said Alice, faltering an instant under
the calmly judicial eye of her aunt. "You see," she went on quickly, "it
was because they lost the race. It wouldn't have been at all--not anyway
for a long time,"--and again her mental glance swept the vista of the
years she had mentioned to Herbert himself,--"if it hadn't been for
that; but I couldn't let him go back without either the race or--or
me," she concluded ingenuously.

Arnold had been talking with a man of his own age, and hearing things
that were very pleasant to hear about his latest work, and yet, as he
leaned back in his chair and looked across at Katharine Normaine, whose
own expression was a little pensive, he sighed. It was a great deal--he
told himself it was nearly everything--to have what he had now in the
line of effort which he loved and had chosen. It was not so good as the
work itself, of course, but the recognition was grateful. And as his
eyes dwelt again upon the distinction of Miss Normaine's profile, with
the knot of blonde hair at the back of her well-held head, he sighed
again, as he rose and went over to her. She looked up at him, and her
eyes were not quite so calm as usual.

"I am sitting," she said, "among the ruins."

"Indeed?" he said. "Is there room upon a fallen column or a broken
plinth for me?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, "but it is not for a successful man like you,
whose name is upon the public li