attalions of acquaintances. She
could get anyone she liked to go on the yacht, and she wanted him. It
was flattering to his masculine vanity. He felt that there was something
in him which stretched out and caught at people, without intention on
his part, which grasped and held them. It was not his talent, he told
himself, for he kept that in the dark. It was himself. Although he was
less conceited than the average Englishman of talent, for a few minutes
he braced his legs and had the cordial conquering sensation.

He had till Sunday to decide.

How absurd to say that to himself when he had decided, told Mrs.
Shiffney, and even told Mrs. Mansfield, his great friend! There was
really no reason why he should send any note on Sunday. He had refused
again and again. That ought to be enough for Mrs. Shiffney, for any
woman. But, of course, he would write, lest he should seem heedless or
impolite.

What a bore that strong instinct within him was, that instinct which
kept him, as it were, moored in a sheltered cove when he might ride the
great seas, and possibly with buoyant success! Perhaps he was merely a
coward, a rejector of life's offerings.

Well, he had till Sunday.

Claude was a gentleman, but not of aristocratic birth. His people were
Cornish, of an old and respected Cornish family, but quite unknown in
the great world. They were very clannish, were quite satisfied with
their position in their own county, were too simple and too well-bred to
share any of the vulgar instincts and aspirations of the climber.
Comfortably off, they had no aching desire to be richer than they were,
to make any splash. The love of ostentation is not a Cornish vice. The
Heaths were homely people, hospitable, warm-hearted, and contented
without being complacent. Claude had often felt himself a little apart
from them, yet he derived from them and inherited, doubtless, much from
them of character, of sentiment, of habit. He was of them and not of
them. But he liked their qualities well in his soul, although he felt
that he could not live quite as they did, or be satisfied with what
satisfied them.

Although he had lived for some years in London he had never tried, or
even thought of trying, to push his way into what are called "the inner
circles." He had assiduously cultivated his musical talent, but never
with a view to using it as a means of opening shut doors. He knew
comparatively few people, and scarcely any who were "in the swim," w