the smoked-out
cigarette-end fell to the floor. "They say her mother was like that.
Poor old Johnny! D'you think I've got a chance, Mr. Lennan? I don't mean
now, this minute; I know she's too young."

Lennan forced himself to answer.

"I dare say, my dear fellow, I dare say. Have you talked with my wife?"

Oliver shook his head.

"She's so good--I don't think she'd quite understand my sort of
feeling."

A queer little smile came up on Lennan's lips.

"Ah, well!" he said, "you must give the child time. Perhaps when she
comes back from Ireland, after the summer."

The young man answered moodily:

"Yes. I've got the run of that, you know. And I shan't be able to keep
away." He took up his hat. "I suppose I oughtn't to have come and
bored you about this, but Nell thinks such a lot of you; and, you being
different to most people--I thought you wouldn't mind." He turned again
at the door. "It wasn't gas what I said just now--about not getting her.
Fellows say that sort of thing, but I mean it."

He put on that shining hat and went.

And Lennan stood, staring at the statuette. So! Passion broke down even
the defences of Dromoredom. Passion! Strange hearts it chose to bloom
in!

'Being different to most people--I thought you wouldn't mind'! How had
this youth known that Sylvia would not understand passion so out of hand
as this? And what had made it clear that he (Lennan) would? Was there,
then, something in his face? There must be! Even Johnny Dromore--most
reticent of creatures--had confided to him that one hour of his astute
existence, when the wind had swept him out to sea!

Yes! And that statuette would never be any good, try as he might. Oliver
was right--it was her eyes! How they had smoked--in their childish
anger--if eyes could be said to smoke, and how they had drawn and
pleaded when she put her face to his in her still more childish
entreaty! If they were like this now, what would they be when the woman
in her woke? Just as well not to think of her too much! Just as well to
work, and take heed that he would soon be forty-seven! Just as well that
next week she would be gone to Ireland!

And the last evening before she went they took her to see "Carmen" at
the Opera. He remembered that she wore a nearly high white frock, and
a dark carnation in the ribbon tying her crinkly hair, that still hung
loose. How wonderfully entranced she sat, drunk on that opera that
he had seen a score of times; now touching