ing to have the stupid thing contradicted right and
left, as fast as possible. I won't do it again."

They were on excellent terms once more. Irene felt a singular pleasure
in his having apologised; it was one of the very rare occasions of his
yielding to her on any point whatever. Never had she felt so kindly
disposed to him.

Arnold was going to Paris, and on business; he hinted at something
pending between his Company and a French Syndicate.

"You are a sort of informal diplomatist," said Irene, her interest keen.

"Now and then, yes. And"--he added with the frankness which was one of
his more amiable points--"I rather like it."

"One sees that you do. Better, I suppose, than the thought of going
into Parliament."

"That may come some day," he answered, glancing at a gull that hovered
above the ship. "Not whilst my father sits there."

"You would be on different sides, I suppose."

Arnold smiled, and went on to say that he was uneasy about his father's
health. John Jacks had fallen of late into a habit of worry about
things great and small, as though age were suddenly telling upon him.
He fretted over public affairs; he suffered from the death of old
friends, especially that of John Bright, whom he had held in
affectionate regard for a lifetime. Irene was glad to hear this
expression of anxiety. For it sometimes seemed to her that Arnold Jacks
had little, if any, domestic feeling.

She wished they could have travelled further together. Their talks were
always broken off too soon, just when she began to get a glimpse of
characteristics still unknown to her. On the journey she thought
constantly of him; not with any sort of tender emotion, but with much
curiosity. It would have gratified her to know what degree of truth
there was in that rumour of his engagement a month ago; some,
undoubtedly, for she had noticed a peculiar smile on the faces of
persons who alluded to it. His apparent coldness towards women in
general might be natural, or might conceal mysteries. So difficult a
man to know! And so impossible to decide whether he was really worth
knowing!

Among intimates of her own sex Irene had a reputation for a certain
chaste severity becoming at moments all but prudery. It did not
altogether harmonise with the tone of highly taught young women who
rather prided themselves on freedom of thought, and to some extent of
utterance. Singular in one so far from cold-blooded, so abounding in
vitality. Towards