"I was going to say, Never. But that wouldn't be true. You have
charming manners: your feelings' clothes and a jolly good fit."

"How kind you are." She was very pleased. "Now, _you_--what shall I
say?"

"You might say that I have no manners, and not offend me. I have no
use for them. But I have feelings, sometimes nice, sometimes horrid."

"I am sure that you couldn't be horrid."

"Don't be sure," he said gravely. "I had rather you weren't. I have
done amiss in my day, much amiss; and I shall do it again."

She looked gently at him; her mouth showed the Luini compassion,
long-drawn and long-suffering, because it understood. "Don't say that.
I don't think you mean it."

He shook his head, but did not cease to watch her. "Oh, but I mean it.
When I want a thing, I try to get it. When I see my way, I follow it.
It seems like a law of Nature. And I suppose it is one. What else is
instinct?"

"Yes," she said, "but I suppose we have feelings in us so that we may
realise that other people have them too."

"Yes, yes--or that we may give them to those who haven't got any of
their own."

They had become grave, and he, at least, moody. Lucy dared not push
enquiry. She had the ardent desire to help and the instinct to make
things comfortable on the surface, which all women have, and which
makes nurses of them. But she discerned trouble ahead. Urquhart's
startling frankness had alarmed her before, and she didn't trust
herself to pass it off if it flashed once too often. Flashes like that
lit up the soul, and not of the lamp-holder only.

They parted, with unwillingness on both sides, at Prince's Gate, and
Lucy sped homewards with feet that flew as fast as her winged
thoughts. That "You darling" was almost proof positive. And yet he had
been at Peltry that night; and yet he couldn't have dared! Now even as
she uttered that last objection she faltered; for when daring came
into question, what might he not dare? Remained the first. He had been
at Peltry, she knew, because she had been asked to meet him there and
had refused on the opera's account. Besides, she had heard about his
riding horses as if they were motors, and-- Here she stood still; and
found herself shaking. That letter--in that letter of Mabel's about
his visit to Peltry, had there not been something of a call to London,
and return late for dinner? And the opera began at half-past six. What
was the date of his call to London? Could she find that letter? And
s