many
things. All his ideas and feelings, all his movements could be relied
on with an absolute assurance of their propriety. Horace would never
do or say anything that could offend her feminine taste. In his love
(she had been certain) there would never be anything painful,
passionate, disturbing. She had dreamed of a love which should be a
great calm light rather than a flame. There was no sort of flame about
Horace. _Was_ Horace a good man? Yes. That is to say he was a moral
man. He would have come to her clean in body and in soul. She had
vowed she would never marry a certain kind of man. And yet that was
the kind of man Keith Rickman had been.

She had further demanded in her husband the finish of the ages. Who
was more finished than Horace? Who more consummately, irreproachably
refined? And yet her heart had grown more tender over Keith Rickman
and his solecisms. And now it beat faster at the very thought of him,
after Horace Jewdwine.

For Horace's coming had brought her understanding of Keith Rickman and
herself. She knew now what had troubled her once clear vision of him.
It was when she had loved him least that she had divined him best.
Hers was not the facile heart that believes because it desires. It
desired because it believed; and now it doubted because its belief was
set so high.

And, knowing that she loved him, she thought of that last day when he
had left her, and how he had taken her hands in his and looked at
them, and she remembered and wondered and had hope.

Then it occurred to her that Horace would be leaving early the next
morning, and that she really ought to go down to the drawing-room and
talk to him.

Again by Kitty's mercy he had been given another chance. He was
softened by a mood of valediction mingled with remorse. He was even
inclined to be a little sentimental. Lucia, because her vision was
indifferent therefore untroubled, could not but perceive the change in
him. His manner had in it something of benediction and something of
entreaty; his spirit brooded over, caressed and flattered hers. He
deplored the necessity for his departure. "_Et ego in Arcadia_"--he
quoted.

"But you'll go away to-morrow and become more--more Metropolitan than
ever."

"Ah, Lucia, can't you leave my poor rag alone? Do you really think so
badly of it?"

"Well, I was prouder of my cousin when he had _The Museion_."

"I didn't ask you what you thought of _me_. Perhaps I'm not very proud
of myself."