ds were so full; but he must now take his
part. And she rang the bell.

"Tell Sir Gerald I'd like to see him, please, as soon as he gets back."

"Sir Gerald has just come in, my lady."

"Now, then!"

Gerald Malloring--an excellent fellow, as could be seen from his face
of strictly Norman architecture, with blue stained-glass windows rather
deep set in--had only one defect: he was not a poet. Not that this would
have seemed to him anything but an advantage, had he been aware of it.
His was one of those high-principled natures who hold that breadth is
synonymous with weakness. It may be said without exaggeration that the
few meetings of his life with those who had a touch of the poet in them
had been exquisitely uncomfortable. Silent, almost taciturn by nature,
he was a great reader of poetry, and seldom went to sleep without having
digested a page or two of Wordsworth, Milton, Tennyson, or Scott. Byron,
save such poems as 'Don Juan' or 'The Waltz,' he could but did not read,
for fear of setting a bad example. Burns, Shelley, and Keats he did
not care for. Browning pained him, except by such things as: 'How They
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' and the 'Cavalier Tunes'; while
of 'Omar Khayyam' and 'The Hound of Heaven' he definitely disapproved.
For Shakespeare he had no real liking, though he concealed this, from
humility in the face of accepted opinion. His was a firm mind, sure of
itself, but not self-assertive. His points were so good, and he had so
many of them, that it was only when he met any one touched with poetry
that his limitations became apparent; it was rare, however, and getting
more so every year, for him to have this unpleasant experience.

When summoned by his wife, he came in with a wrinkle between his
straight brows; he had just finished a morning's work on a drainage
scheme, like the really good fellow that he was. She greeted him with
a little special smile. Nothing could be friendlier than the relations
between these two. Affection and trust, undeviating undemonstrativeness,
identity of feeling as to religion, children, property; and, in regard
to views on the question of sex, a really strange unanimity, considering
that they were man and woman.

"It's about these Gaunts, Gerald. I feel they must go at once. They're
only creating bad feeling by staying till quarter day. I have had the
young Freelands here."

"Those young pups!"

"Can't it be managed?"

Malloring did not answer has