y herself, I believe, just before the storm,
to get a water-lily she wanted to paint, and hasn't appeared since. By
Jove! if Telfer should have to play knight-errant to his 'pet aversion,'
what fun it would be."

Marc had his fun, for an hour afterwards, when the storm had blown over,
up the terrace steps came Violet and the Major. They weren't talking to
each other, but they were actually walking together; and the courtesy
with which he put a dripping rose-branch out of her path with his stick,
was something quite new.

It seems that Telfer, disliking disagreeable sensations, and classing
getting wet among such, had arisen when the thunder began to growl, and
slowly wended his way homewards. But before he was halfway to Essellau
the rain began to drip off his moustache, and seeing a little marble
temple (the Parthenon turned into a summer-house!) close by, he thought
he might as well go in and have another weed till it grew finer. Go in
he did; and he'd just smoked half a cigar, and read the last chapter of
"Indiana," when he looked up, and saw the Tressillian's pug, looking a
bedraggled and miserable object, at his feet, and the Tressillian
herself standing within a few yards of him. If Telfer had abstained from
a few fierce mental oaths, he would have been of a much more pacific
nature than he ever pretended to be; and I don't doubt that he looked
hauteur concentrated as he rose at his enemy's entrance. Violet made a
movement of retreat, but then thought better of it. It would have seemed
too much like flying from the foe. So with a careless bow she sank on
one of the seats, took off her hat, shook the rain-drops off her hair,
and busied herself in sedulous attentions to the pug. The Major thought
it incumbent on him to speak a few sentences about the thunder that was
cracking over their heads; Violet answered him as briefly; and Telfer
putting down his cigar with a sigh, sat watching the storm in silence,
not troubling himself to talk any more.

As she bent down to pat the pug she caught his eyes on her with a cold,
critical glance. He was thinking how pure her profile was and how
exquisite her eyes, and--of how cordially he should hate her if his
father married her. Her color rose, but she met his look steadily, which
is a difficult thing to do if you've anything to conceal, for the
Major's eyes are very keen and clear. Her lips curved with a smile half
amused, half disdainful. "What a pity, Major Telfer," she sa