her paintings. It is a relief to the truly jealous mind to
indulge in plurals. Thatcher liked to think that she was already beset
by hundreds of brothers.

He still kept staring at the picture. By and by it faded away in part,
and a very vivid recollection of the misty, midnight, moonlit walk he
had once taken with her came back, and refilled the canvas with its
magic. He saw the ruined furnace; the dark, overhanging masses of rock,
the trembling intricacies of foliage, and, above all, the flash of dark
eyes under a mantilla at his shoulder. What a fool he had been! Had he
not really been as senseless and stupid as this very Concho, lying
here like a log? And she had loved that man. What a fool she must have
thought him that evening! What a snob she must think him now!

He was startled by a slight rustling in the passage, that ceased almost
as he turned. Thatcher looked towards the door of the outer office, as
if half expecting that the Lord Chancellor, like the commander in Don
Juan, might have accepted his thoughtless invitation. He listened again;
everything was still. He was conscious of feeling ill at ease and a
trifle nervous. What a long time Harlowe took to make his preparations.
He would look out in the hall. To do this it was necessary to turn up
the gas. He did so, and in his confusion turned it out!

Where were the matches? He remembered that there was a bronze something
on the table that, in the irony of modern decorative taste, might hold
ashes or matches, or anything of an unpicturesque character. He knocked
something over, evidently the ink,--something else,--this time a
champagne glass. Becoming reckless, and now groping at random in the
ruins, he overturned the bronze Mercury on the center table, and then
sat down hopelessly in his chair. And then a pair of velvet fingers slid
into his, with the matches, and this audible, musical statement:

"It is a match you are seeking? Here is of them."

Thatcher flushed, embarrassed, nervous,--feeling the ridiculousness of
saying, "Thank you" to a dark somebody,--struck the match, beheld by its
brief, uncertain glimmer Carmen de Haro beside him, burned his fingers,
coughed, dropped the match, and was cast again into outer darkness.

"Let me try!"

Carmen struck a match, jumped briskly on the chair, lit the gas, jumped
lightly down again, and said: "You do like to sit in the dark,--eh? So
am I--sometimes--alone."

"Miss De Haro," said Thatcher, with sudden