hich she has repaid
all my pain, for I have added another fair jewel to her crown. I don't
want rewards; I only want the honour of serving this dear land of ours.'

Julia went up to him and laid her hand gently on his arm.

'Why is it, when you're so nice really, that you do all you can to make
people think you utterly horrid?'

'Don't laugh at me because you've found out that at bottom I'm nothing
more than a sentimental old woman.'

'I don't want to laugh at you. But if I didn't think it would embarrass
you so dreadfully, I should certainly kiss you.'

He smiled and lifting her hand to his lips, lightly kissed it.

'I shall begin to think I'm a very wonderful woman if I've taught you to
do such pretty things as that.'

She made him sit down, and then she sat by his side.

'I'm very glad you came to-day. I wanted to talk to you. Will you be
very angry if I say something to you?'

'I don't think so,' he smiled.

'I want to speak to you about Lucy.'

He drew himself suddenly together, and the expansion of his mood
disappeared. He was once more the cold, reserved man of their habitual
intercourse.

'I'd rather you didn't,' he said briefly.

But Julia was not to be so easily put off.

'What would you do if she came here to-day?' she asked.

He turned round and looked at her sharply, then answered with great
deliberation.

'I have always lived in polite society. I should never dream of
outraging its conventions. If Lucy happened to come, you may be sure
that I should be scrupulously polite.'

'Is that all?' she cried.

He did not answer, and into his face came a wild fierceness that
appalled her. She saw the effort he was making at self-control. She
wished with all her heart that he would be less brave.

'I think you might not be so hard if you knew how desperately Lucy has
suffered.'

He looked at her again, and his eyes were filled with bitterness, with
angry passion at the injustice of fate. Did she think that he had not
suffered? Because he did not whine his misery to all and sundry, did she
think he did not care? He sprang up and walked to the other end of the
room. He did not want that woman, for all her kindness, to see his face.
He was not the man to fall in and out of love with every pretty girl he
met. All his life he had kept an ideal before his eyes. He turned to
Julia savagely.

'You don't know what it meant to me to fall in love. I felt that I had
lived all my life in a prison, and