ge had been obliged to renounce the attempt
to go further.

"She oughtn't to have come out at all," her ladyship rather grumpily
remarked.

"Is she so very much of an invalid?"

"Very bad indeed." And his hostess added with still greater austerity:
"She oughtn't really to come to one!" He wondered what was implied by
this, and presently gathered that it was not a reflexion on the lady's
conduct or her moral nature: it only represented that her strength was
not equal to her aspirations.

CHAPTER III

The smoking-room at Summersoft was on the scale of the rest of the place;
high light commodious and decorated with such refined old carvings and
mouldings that it seemed rather a bower for ladies who should sit at work
at fading crewels than a parliament of gentlemen smoking strong cigars.
The gentlemen mustered there in considerable force on the Sunday evening,
collecting mainly at one end, in front of one of the cool fair fireplaces
of white marble, the entablature of which was adorned with a delicate
little Italian "subject." There was another in the wall that faced it,
and, thanks to the mild summer night, a fire in neither; but a nucleus
for aggregation was furnished on one side by a table in the
chimney-corner laden with bottles, decanters and tall tumblers. Paul
Overt was a faithless smoker; he would puff a cigarette for reasons with
which tobacco had nothing to do. This was particularly the case on the
occasion of which I speak; his motive was the vision of a little direct
talk with Henry St. George. The "tremendous" communion of which the
great man had held out hopes to him earlier in the day had not yet come
off, and this saddened him considerably, for the party was to go its
several ways immediately after breakfast on the morrow. He had, however,
the disappointment of finding that apparently the author of "Shadowmere"
was not disposed to prolong his vigil. He wasn't among the gentlemen
assembled when Paul entered, nor was he one of those who turned up, in
bright habiliments, during the next ten minutes. The young man waited a
little, wondering if he had only gone to put on something extraordinary;
this would account for his delay as well as contribute further to Overt's
impression of his tendency to do the approved superficial thing. But he
didn't arrive--he must have been putting on something more extraordinary
than was probable. Our hero gave him up, feeling a little injured, a
little wo