ssion, without prospects, soon to be without
friends."

He seemed to take pleasure in recalling his defects, and she let him
ramble on; women who are neither psychological puzzles nor interesting
personalities have a way of listening patiently whilst a tortured soul
eases its burden by contemplating its own martyrdom.

"I am a penniless beggar," he reiterated. "I have no right to ask any
woman to share my future dull and humdrum existence. A few thousands
is all I have. I think that Edie will marry soon and then I can go
abroad--I must go abroad--I must do something----"

"We'll do it together, Luke."

"I feel," he continued, rebellious now and wrathful, all the primary
instincts alive in him of self-preservation and the desire to destroy
an enemy, "I feel that if I stayed in England I should contrive to be
even with that blackguard. His rights? By God! I would never question
those. The moment I knew that he was Uncle Arthur's son I should have
been ready to shake him by the hand, to respect him, to stand aside as
was his due. But his attitude!--the influence he exercises over Uncle
Rad!--his rancour against us all! Jim and Edie! what had they done to
be all turned out of the house like a pack of poor relations--and poor
Uncle Rad----"

He checked himself, for she had put a hand on his coat sleeve.

"Luke, it is no use," she said.

"You are right, Lou! and I am a miserable wretch. If you only knew how
I hate that man----"

"Don't," she said, "let us think of him."

"How can I help it? He robs me of you."

"No," she rejoined, "not that."

Her hand still rested on his arm, and he took it between both his. The
couples in front of them all down the length of stairs paid no heed to
them, and through the hum of voices, from a distant room beyond, came
softly wafted on the hot, still air the strains of the exquisite
barcarolle from the "Contes d' Hoffmann."

Louisa smiled confidently, proudly. He held her hand and she felt that
his--hot and dry--quivered in every muscle at her touch. The
commonplace woman had opened the magic book of Love. She had turned
its first pages, the opening chapters had been simple, unruffled,
uncrumpled by the hand of men or of Fate. But now at last she read the
chapter which all along she knew was bound to reach her ken. The
leaves of the book were crumpled; Fate with cruel hand had tried to
blur the writing; the psychological problem of to-day--the one that
goes by the name of "mode