an offending or innocent
subordinate, the old man's dour face would become transfigured,
irradiated with a look of pride and of joy at sight of the man on whom
he had lavished all the affection of which his strong nature was
capable.

Luke could do no wrong. Luke was always right. He could argue with his
lordship, contradict him, obtain anything he liked from him. Eternal
contradictions of human nature: the childless man in perfect adoration
before a brother's son; the callous, hard-hearted misanthrope soft as
wax in the hands of one man.

CHAPTER VII

THE PART PLAYED BY A FIVE-POUND NOTE

And it was into this atmosphere of gloom and of purposeless
misanthropy that Louisa Harris brought this morning the cheering
sunshine of her own indomitable optimism.

She knew of course from the first that the subject which interested
every one in the house more than any other subject could ever do was
not to be mentioned in Lord Radclyffe's presence. But she was quite
shrewd enough to see that dear old Luke--unsophisticated and none too
acute an observer--had overestimated his uncle's indifference to the
all-absorbing matter.

The old man's face--usually a mirror of contemptuous cynicism--looked,
to the woman's keener insight, distinctly troubled, and his surly
silence was even more profound than hitherto.

He hardly did more than bid Louisa a curt, "How de do?" when she
entered, and then relapsed into moroseness wholly unbroken before
luncheon was announced.

Jim--"in the Blues"--was there when she arrived, and Edie came in a
few moments later, breathless and with hat awry and tawny hair flying
in all directions, straight from a tussle with the dogs and the sharp
wind in the park.

Evidently no secret had been made before these two of the strange
events which had culminated this very morning in their brother's
avowal to Louisa, and the postponement _sine die_ of the wedding. But
equally evidently these young creatures absorbed in their own life,
their own pursuits and amusements, were not inclined to look on the
matter seriously.

Their sky had been so absolutely cloudless throughout their lives that
it was impossible for them at the moment to realize that the dark
shadow on the distant horizon might possibly conceal thunder in its
filmy bosom.

Edie--just over twenty years of age and already satiated with the
excitement of three London seasons, her mind saturated with novel
reading and on the lookout for s