enry St. George wrote, he
had written for the last ten years, and especially for the last five,
only too much, and there was an instant during which he felt inwardly
solicited to make this public. But before he had spoken a diversion was
effected by the return of the absentees. They strolled up
dispersedly--there were eight or ten of them--and the circle under the
trees rearranged itself as they took their place in it. They made it
much larger, so that Paul Overt could feel--he was always feeling that
sort of thing, as he said to himself--that if the company had already
been interesting to watch the interest would now become intense. He
shook hands with his hostess, who welcomed him without many words, in the
manner of a woman able to trust him to understand and conscious that so
pleasant an occasion would in every way speak for itself. She offered
him no particular facility for sitting by her, and when they had all
subsided again he found himself still next General Fancourt, with an
unknown lady on his other flank.

"That's my daughter--that one opposite," the General said to him without
lose of time. Overt saw a tall girl, with magnificent red hair, in a
dress of a pretty grey-green tint and of a limp silken texture, a garment
that clearly shirked every modern effect. It had therefore somehow the
stamp of the latest thing, so that our beholder quickly took her for
nothing if not contemporaneous.

"She's very handsome--very handsome," he repeated while he considered
her. There was something noble in her head, and she appeared fresh and
strong.

Her good father surveyed her with complacency, remarking soon: "She looks
too hot--that's her walk. But she'll be all right presently. Then I'll
make her come over and speak to you."

"I should be sorry to give you that trouble. If you were to take me over
_there_--!" the young man murmured.

"My dear sir, do you suppose I put myself out that way? I don't mean for
you, but for Marian," the General added.

"_I_ would put myself out for her soon enough," Overt replied; after
which he went on: "Will you be so good as to tell me which of those
gentlemen is Henry St. George?"

"The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he _is_ making up to
her--they're going off for another walk."

"Ah is that he--really?" Our friend felt a certain surprise, for the
personage before him seemed to trouble a vision which had been vague only
while not confronted with the reality.