of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes. That
speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her
arrival to that of her departure--except at dinner. And from the instant
of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in
that meal, she turned her face to the wall again.

Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite
was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be
occasionally touched. When they made the round of the old dark cellars,
Vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at
night, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would
have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though
it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price
forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen. And still, when she was
gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner,
he tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her! Did
she think that he adored her! Did she suspect that she had won him,
heart and soul! Did she care to think at all about it! And so, Did she
and Didn't she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the
line, dear, dear! Poor restless heart of humanity! To think that the
men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found
the secret how to be quiet after it!

"What do you think, George," Wilding asked him next day, "of Mr.
Obenreizer? (I won't ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)"

"I don't know," said Vendale, "and I never did know, what to think of
him."

"He is well informed and clever," said Wilding.

"Certainly clever."

"A good musician." (He had played very well, and sung very well,
overnight.)

"Unquestionably a good musician."

"And talks well."

"Yes," said George Vendale, ruminating, "and talks well. Do you know,
Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn't
keep silence well!"

"How do you mean? He is not obtrusively talkative."

"No, and I don't mean that. But when he is silent, you can hardly help
vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. Take people whom
you know and like. Take any one you know and like."

"Soon done, my good fellow," said Wilding. "I take you."

"I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," returned Vendale, laughing.
"However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is your