ion, and there's the smoke of the train.
We've cut it rather close. Across the line; you'll have to run--sharp!"

They did so, reaching the platform as the train drew up. Dyce allowed
his companion to open a carriage-door for herself. That was quite in
accord with his principles, but perhaps he would for once have
neglected them had he been sure by which class Miss Bride would travel.
She entered the third.

"You wouldn't care to introduce me to Lady Ogram?" he said, standing by
the window, and looking straight into the girl's eyes.

"I will if you wish," she answered, meeting his look with hard
steadiness and a frown as of pain.

"Many thanks! Rivenoak, Hollingford, the address? Suppose I call in a
few days?"

"If you like."

The train moved. Dyce bared his head, and, as he turned away, thought
how contemptible was the practice.

Walking briskly against a cold wind, he busied his imagination about
Lady Ogram. The picture he made to himself of this wealthy and original
old lady was very fertile of suggestion; his sanguine temper bore him
to heights of brilliant possibility. Dyce Lashmar had a genius for airy
construction; much of his time was spent in deducing imaginary results
from some half presented opportunity. As his fancy wrought, he walked
faster and faster, and he reached the vicarage in a physical glow which
corresponded to his scintillating state of mind.

Of Constance Bride he thought hardly at all. She did not interest him;
her proximity left him cold. She might be a useful instrument; apart
from his "method," that was the light in which he regarded all the
women he knew. Experience had taught him that he possessed a certain
power over women of a certain kind; it seemed probable that Constance
belonged to the class; but this was a fact which had no emotional
bearing. With a moment's idle wonder he remembered the circumstances of
their former parting. He was then a boy, and who shall account for a
boy's momentary impulses? Constance was a practical sort of person, and
in all likelihood thought no more of that foolish incident than he did.

"Why are you so eccentric in your movements, Dyce?" said Mrs. Lashmar,
irritably, when he entered the drawing-room again. "You write one day
that you're coming in a week or two, and on the next here you are. How
could you know that it was convenient to us to have you just now?"

"The Woolstan boy has a cold," Dyce replied, "and I found myself free
for a few days