n the guest who was ushered into the room, and Lena
Houghton also prepared to greet him most pleasantly.

I looked with much interest at Sigismund Zaluski, and as I looked I
partly understood why Miss Houghton had been prejudiced against him at
first sight. He had lived five years in England, and nothing pleased him
more than to be taken for an Englishman. He had had his silky black hair
closely cropped in the very hideous fashion of the present day; he wore
the ostentatiously high collar now in vogue; and he tried to be
sedulously English in every respect. But in spite of his wonderfully
fluent speech and almost perfect accent, there lingered about him
something which would not harmonise with that ideal of an English
gentleman which is latent in most minds. Something he lacked, something
he possessed, which interfered with the part he desired to play. The
something lacking showed itself in his ineradicable love of jewellery and
in a transparent habit of fibbing; the something possessed showed itself
in his easy grace of movement, his delightful readiness to amuse and to
be amused, and in a certain cleverness and rapidity of idea rarely, if
ever, found in an Englishman.

He was a little above the average height and very finely built; but there
was nothing striking in his aquiline features and dark grey eyes, and I
think Miss Houghton spoke truly when she said that he was 'Not even good-
looking.' Still, in spite of this, it was a face which grew upon most
people, and I felt the least little bit of regret as I looked at him,
because I knew that I should persistently haunt and harass him, and
should do all that could be done to spoil his life.

Apparently he had forgotten all about Russia and Bulgaria, for he looked
radiantly happy. Clearly his thoughts were engrossed with his own
affairs, which, in other words, meant with Gertrude Morley; and though,
as I have since observed, there are times when a man in love is an
altogether intolerable sort of being, there are other times when he is
very much improved by the passion, and regards the whole world with a
genial kindliness which contrasts strangely with his previous cool
cynicism.

"How delightful and home-like your room always looks!" he exclaimed,
taking the cup of tea which Mrs. O'Reilly handed to him. "I am horribly
lonely at Ivy Cottage. This house is a sort of oasis in the desert."

"Why, you are hardly ever at home, I thought," said Mrs. O'Reilly,
smi