l but me,
for I've convinced him that I'm really his friend. He only said that her
name was Miss Grant, and that she was very lucky at the Casino. And in
about three minutes we were at the door of this house."

"Well, I'm mighty glad you're interested in her, and that you're willing
to call."

"Willing? I'm charmed. I'll go to-morrow."

"You--you couldn't go to-day, I suppose?"

"Silly boy, it's too late. Here's tea; and here's St. George; and here
will be some of the flock presently, who generally appear on the stroke
of half-past four."

In another moment Carleton was shaking the hand of a slender, pale man
with auburn hair worn rather long, a sensitive mouth, delicate nostrils,
and beautiful, bright, hazel eyes which shone with a spiritual,
unworldly enthusiasm. He looked like one who would cheerfully have been
a martyr to his faith had he lived a few centuries earlier. And Dick
thought his cousin's simile of the high Alps not too far fetched, after
all. But there was a warm light in the beautiful eyes as they turned
upon Rose; and something in the man's smile hinted that he did not lack
a sense of humour, except when too absent-minded to bring it into play.
Dick felt happy about Rose, and happier about Miss Grant, because Rose
would go and see her.

XIV

Life was not running on oiled wheels at the Villa Bella Vista.

A spirit of discontent, a feeling that they had been lured to the house
under false pretences, grew among Lady Dauntrey's visitors and was
expressed stealthily, a word here, a word there, and sullen looks behind
the backs of host and hostess. Even on the first day disappointment
began to wriggle from guest to guest, like a little cold, sharp-nosed
snake, leaving its clammy trail wherever it passed.

In the first place the villa, which had been described glowingly by Lady
Dauntrey to the Collises and Dodo Wardropp, was not what she had painted
it. Indeed, as Dodo remarked to Miss Collis, it was not what any one had
painted it, at least within the memory of man. Once it had been a rich
gold colour, but many seasons of neglect had tarnished the gold to a
freckled brown, which even the flowering creepers that should have
cloaked it seemed to dislike. In depression they had shed most of their
leaves; and bare serpent-branches, which might be purple with wistaria
in the late spring long after everybody had gone to the north, coiled
dismally over the fanlike roof of dirty glass that sheltere