e
seven years have left no stain, however slight, on the name of Lamar."

"Do I deserve that?" cried Harry. "What have I done?"

"Nothing irremediable, but you must admit that now and then I have been
at no small pains to--er--assist you. But there, I don't intend to
speak of the past; and to tell the truth, I suspect that we are of one
mind. You regard me as more or less of an encumbrance; you think your
movements are hampered; you consider yourself to be treated as a child
unjustly.

"Well, for my part, I find my duty--for such I consider it--grows more
irksome every day. If I am in your way, you are no less in mine. To
make it short, you are now twenty-two years old, you chafe at
restraint, you think yourself abundantly able to manage your own
affairs. Well--I have no objection."

Harry stared at me.

"You mean--" he began.

"Exactly."

"But, Paul--"

"There is no need to discuss it. For me, it is mostly selfishness."

But he wanted to talk, and I humored him. For two hours we sat,
running the scale from business to sentiment, and I must confess that I
was more than once surprised by a flash from Harry. Clearly he was
developing, and for the first time I indulged a hope that he might
prove himself fit for self-government.

At least I had given him the rope; it remained for time to discover
whether or not he would avoid getting tangled up in it. When we had
finished we understood each other better, I think, than we ever had
before; and we parted with the best of feeling.

Three days later I sailed for Europe, leaving Harry in New York. It
was my first trip across in eighteen months, and I aimed at pleasure.
I spent a week in London and Munich, then, disgusted with the actions
of some of my fellow countrymen with whom I had the misfortune to be
acquainted, I turned my face south for Madrid.

There I had a friend.

A woman not beautiful, but eminently satisfying; not loose, but
liberal, with a character and a heart. In more ways than one she was
remarkable; she had an affection for me; indeed, some years previously
I had been in a way to play Albert Savaron to her Francesca Colonna, an
arrangement prevented only by my constitutional dislike for any
prolonged or sustained effort in a world the slave of vanity and folly.

It was from the lips of this friend that I first heard the name of
Desiree Le Mire.

It was late in the afternoon on the fashionable drive. Long, broad,
and shady, thoug