ersonally agreeable?"

"Yes, I do. I didn't at first--" She checked herself--"I mean I
_did_ at the very first--then I didn't--then I did again, then
I--didn't--" The delicate colour stole into her cheeks; she lifted
her wineglass, looked into it pensively, set it back on the table.
"But I understand him better now, I think."

"What, in him, do you understand better now?"

"I--don't--know."

"Is he a better kind of a man than you thought him at first?"

"Y-es. He has it in him to be better, I mean. . . . Yes, he is a
better man than I thought him--once."

"And you like him----"

"Yes, I do. Colonel Arran."

"Admire him?"

She flushed up. "How do you mean?"

"His qualities?"

"Oh. . . . Yes, he has qualities."

"Admirable?"

"He is exceedingly intelligent."

"Intellectual?"

"I don't exactly know. He pretends to make fun of so many things.
It is not easy to be perfectly sure what he really believes;
because he laughs at almost everybody and everything. But I am
quite certain that he really has beliefs."

"Religious?"

She looked grave. "He does not go to church."

"Does he--does he strike you as being--well, say,
irresponsible--perhaps I may even say reckless?"

She did not answer; and Colonel Arran did not ask again. He
remained silent so long that she presently drifted off into other
subjects, and he made no effort to draw her back.

But later, when he took his leave, he said in his heavy way:

"When you see Mr. Berkley, say to him that Colonel Arran remembers
him. . . . Say to him that it would be my--pleasure--to renew our
very slight acquaintance."

"He will be glad, I know," she said warmly.

"Why do you think so?"

"Why? Because _I_ like you!" she explained with a gay little
laugh. "And whoever I like Mr. Berkley must like if he and I are
to remain good friends."

The Colonel's smile was wintry; the sudden animation in his face
had subsided.

"I should like to know him--if he will," he said absently. And
took his leave of Ailsa Paige.

Next afternoon he came again, and lingered, though neither he nor
Ailsa spoke of Berkley. And the next afternoon he reappeared, and
sat silent, preoccupied, for a long time, in the peculiar hushed
attitude of a man who listens. But the door-bell did not ring and
the only sound in tile house was from Ailsa's piano, where she sat
idling through the sunny afternoon.

The next afternoon he said:

"Does he never call on you?"