pon the sward. Dymchurch looked after his
ladies; but the elder of them soon wandered off amid the friendly
throng, and May, who ate and drank with enjoyment, was able to give her
companion the promised description of her activity at Northampton. The
listener smiled and smiled; had much ado, indeed, not to exhibit open
gaiety; but ever and again his eyes rested on the girl's countenance,
and its animation so pleased him that he saw even in her absurdities a
spirit of good.

"You never did any work of that sort?" inquired May, regarding him from
a good-natured height.

"Never, I'm sorry to say."

"But don't you sometimes feel as if it were a duty?"

"I often feel I ought to do _something_," answered Dymchurch, in a
graver voice. "But whether I could be of any use among the poor, is
doubtful."

"No, I hardly think you could," said May, reflectively. "Your social
position doesn't allow of that. Of course you help to make laws, which
is more important."

"If I really did so; but I don't. I have no more part in law-making
than you have."

"But, why not?" asked May, gazing at him in surprise. "Surely _that_ is
a duty about which you can have no doubt."

"I neglect _all_ duties," he answered.

"How strange! Is it your principle? You are not an Anarchist, Lord
Dymchurch?"

"Practically, I fancy that's just what I am. Theoretically, no.
Suppose," he added, with his pleasantest smile, "you advise me as to
what use I can make of my life."

The man was speaking without control of his tongue. He had sunk into a
limp passivity; in part, it might be, the result of the drowsily
humming air; in part, a sort of hypnotism due to May's talk and the
feminine perfume which breathed from her. He understood the idleness of
what fell from his lips, but it pleased him to be idle.
Therewithal--strange contradiction--he was trying to persuade himself
that, more likely than not, this chattering girl had it in her power to
make him an active, useful man, to draw him out of his mouldy hermitage
and set him in the world's broad daylight. The analogy of Lord
Honeybourne came into his mind; Lord Honeybourne, whose marriage had
been the turning-point of his career, and whose wife, in many respects,
bore a resemblance to May Tomalin.

"I shall have to think very seriously about it," May was replying. "But
nothing could interest me more. You don't feel at all inclined for
public life?"

Their dialogue was interrupted by the hostess, who