y, she felt that the young girl's skepticism, or her charity, or,
as she had sometimes called it appropriately, her idealism, was proof
against irony. Bessie, however, remained meditative all the rest of that
day and well on into the morrow.

On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had occasion to go out for an
hour, and left her sister writing a letter. When she came back she
met Lord Lambeth at the door of the hotel, coming away. She thought he
looked slightly embarrassed; he was certainly very grave. "I am sorry to
have missed you. Won't you come back?" she asked.

"No," said the young man, "I can't. I have seen your sister. I can never
come back." Then he looked at her a moment and took her hand. "Goodbye,
Mrs. Westgate," he said. "You have been very kind to me." And with what
she thought a strange, sad look in his handsome young face, he turned
away.

She went in, and she found Bessie still writing her letter; that is,
Mrs. Westgate perceived she was sitting at the table with the pen in her
hand and not writing. "Lord Lambeth has been here," said the elder lady
at last.

Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious face. She bent this
face upon her sister for some time, confessing silently and a little
pleading. "I told him," she said at last, "that we could not go to
Branches."

Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation. "He might have
waited," she said with a smile, "till one had seen the castle." Later,
an hour afterward, she said, "Dear Bessie, I wish you might have
accepted him."

"I couldn't," said Bessie gently.

"He is an excellent fellow," said Mrs. Westgate.

"I couldn't," Bessie repeated.

"If it is only," her sister added, "because those women will think that
they succeeded--that they paralyzed us!"

Bessie Alden turned away; but presently she added, "They were
interesting; I should have liked to see them again."

"So should I!" cried Mrs. Westgate significantly.

"And I should have liked to see the castle," said Bessie. "But now we
must leave England," she added.

Her sister looked at her. "You will not wait to go to the National
Gallery?"

"Not now."

"Nor to Canterbury Cathedral?"

Bessie reflected a moment. "We can stop there on our way to Paris," she
said.

Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beaumont that the contingency he was
not prepared at all to like had occurred; but Percy Beaumont, on hearing
that the two ladies had left London, wondered with some intens