r champion, though championship might endanger more than he could allow her to guess. He didn't much car

nd for him the eighteenth-century deists, for whom she had looked through rows of long undisturbed volumes. Felicia smiled somewhat grimly as she clapped together the covers of Bolingbroke and

s through which she glanced

me," he declared. "I claim a

I escape you?" She had t

Geoffrey irritated you, and I was included in the irritation. Isn't

icia owned. "I felt, pe

s unkind of you to bar me away from you-even for a day or two-and two days is a frightfully long time in a mere week." His voice lifted itself from the almost gravity to which it had sunken;

ane; that's an unusual quality for dreams. They seeme

a sunny dream either. Sad dawn perha

hen. He always spends the morning he

y would take it." Maurice was reflecting that read to her alone th

. Anything so self-assured makes me feel frivolous, and yet, I do see something admirable in him. He was walk

he best thing in Geoffrey-the single-minded directness of his quest-

hat too. It's a touch of human tende

ink he feels towards me as though I were a bit of very nice Limoges hanging

he has any aesthetic fibres at all, or sees the colour in anything. Ho

ey, to hear a bit of poetry. I'm going to try its effec

rning paper he held in his h

of poetry, M

men. He smiled and made a remark as though offering a child a lollipop-a

her high seat on the steps. Their eyes had not met

urely you can't get too much of-Browning for instance?" and Geoffrey smiled

t let's hear Maeterlinck, w

page. Leaning his elbo

revenait

t-il lu

i qu'on l

à s'en

m'interr

e reco

ui comme

ffre p

emande où

t-il ré

ui mon an

en lui

eut savoi

e est d

lui la la

porte

m'interr

dernièr

ui qui j

qu'il ne

books, her elbows on her knees, look

ntirely allayed his anxieties on his friend's behalf. His newer impressions of her removed her from any conceptions of wild-rose flirtations. Her quiet air, now, of intelligent comradeship defined and limited the unsub

ardly knew that he wanted it, hardly knew that he was sorry, hardly thought at all as he stood, his hand on the shelf near Felicia's shoulder, vaguely listening to pathetic words and looking a

ling squadrons of clouds. Something in himself, some quality deep and unrecognized, the quality that made him nearer to his saintly father than to his mother with her worldly energy, had quietly arisen, had seemed to mingle with all the peace and beauty, to draw him to the sky, or to draw all the sky down into his own irradiated and happy hea

ery heart of love

ouched; she did not w

wanted him to

n," Maurice turned the leaves of hi

lieve that you would rath

apable of these heigh

might have said it all-only, oh! how I shoul

d look yielded to her swallow-like darts

!" he crie

w could one miss such a chance-even if it meant more suffering for the

were dying, and suffering through her fault, I woul

love you more." Felicia turned her eyes on Geoffrey. "What would

n in the least tell

and Mr. Wynne's magnanim

magine. The poem seems to me r

s morning and wants these; I must take them to him. You have cleared the

yet-what was he to do about it? He knew that Felicia could bring him nothing, or next to nothing; he himself was frightfully in debt, and unless some book or picture would write or paint itself into astonishing remunerativeness he could see no prospect of independence. Angela was certainly there; odd to realize, and rather humiliating, how, in spite of all his talk against marrying for money she had always been there, a comfortable cushion in his thoughts for anxie

to the refuge clear; but did she guess that it was not a flirtation?-see that it was neither so little nor so much? And might she not, her long patience exhausted, marry somebod

s. It would be base to make serious love to Felicia; and would she enhance the present? would she flirt? did he want her to flirt? The Watteau element in Felicia, her colouring and manner of knotting her hair encouraged these futile surmises as to whether the resemblance would extend to a permission of half-artificial, half-sincere coquetries. If she would be the Dresden shepherdess to his Dresden shepherd for the day or two remaining of their companionship-but