er that
his reservation galled him.

He had studied with attentiveness the columns of such papers as had come
his way, dreading to find Langrishe's name among the casualties.
Hitherto it had not occurred, and for that he was deeply grateful. If
there had been news he must have betrayed it to Nelly by his eyes and
his voice.

"I wish we could have stayed longer," she said to him on the eve of
their departure from Italy.

"And I, Nell."

"Oh," she looked at him in wonder. "I thought you were keen to be gone."

"Is it likely?" he asked with playful tenderness, "that I should be
anxious to shorten the time in which you are mine and not Robin
Drummond's?"

They were alone, and she turned and put her head on his shoulder.

"I shall always be yours," she said. "And I think marriage and giving in
marriage a weariness of the spirit."

"Not really, Nell?" The General looked at her golden head in alarm, but
already she was reproaching herself.

"Never mind, dear papa," she said. "I didn't altogether mean it. Poor,
kind Robin! What a very ungrateful girl I am to you all!"

As soon as they got back the Dowager engaged her in a whirl of shops and
dressmakers, and for that the General was grateful. He resorted to
man[oe]uvres in those days to keep the newspapers out of Nelly's way
that revealed to himself hitherto unsuspected depths of cunning. He
opened the papers with a tremor. The orange and green and pink bills of
the evening newspapers stuck up where Nelly could see them, laid on the
pavement almost under her feet, brought his heart into his mouth. If
they could only tide over the dangerous time, and Nelly be married and
gone off on her leisurely honeymoon! Langrishe might almost fade out of
her mind, become at least a gentle memory, before anything could happen
to him: or the deadly little dragging war might be over and Langrishe
have carried out a whole skin.

It was the height of the season and Nelly had her social engagements as
well as the preparations for her wedding. As often as was possible Robin
Drummond put in an appearance, but the House was sitting and much of his
time was taken up. He looked rather more hatchet-faced than of old.
Once, sitting in the Strangers' Gallery of the House, the General heard
someone say as Robin was about to speak: "Who is that careworn-looking
young man?" Careworn, indeed! The General fumed and fretted over it, the
more because it fell in with a certain secret thought he had h