ed most was that it might
change him in some way, make him something beastly and devilish--he who
had always loved whatever was lovely and merciful and of good report."

Hugh got up with a shudder. "Hush!" he said, sharply. "It's too ghastly.
Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a
leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The
wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like
inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were
pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes. The place was full of foolhardy
little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out.
After all, that was the way to live--as long as one was allowed. He
turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a
bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down
again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane
of the smile.

"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of
the balcony door."

"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?"

"It was everybody. The company had gone and Melanie the _bonne_ was
putting out the candles.

"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly
related,' said he.

"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed."

"And the other time," Hugh hinted. What he wanted to say was, "So you
prevented it, you kept him here, God bless you!" His natural resilience
had asserted itself. Vistas were opening. The Hugh who accepted life for
what it was worth was again in the ascendant, but he found a second to
call up the other Hugh, whose legal residence was somewhere near the
threshold of consciousness, to take notice. He had always known that
there must have been something in Uncle Hugh's girl.

"That was a few days later, the afternoon before I left Paris. I went
quite suddenly. Somebody was sick at home, and I had the chance to
travel with some friends who were going. He had sent me flowers--no, not
roses."

"Narcissus?"

"Yes. Old Monsieur Normand was scandalized; it seems one doesn't send
yellow flowers to a _jeune fille_. To me it was the most incredibly
thoughtful and original thing. All the other girls had gone with Madame
to a very special piano recital, in spite of a drizzling rain. It had
turned cool, too, I remember, because there was a wood fire in the
little sitting-room--not the _