dubious and difficult.

After the evening at the Workmen's Club, and as a result of further
meditation, he had greatly developed the tactics first adopted on that
occasion. He had beaten a masterly retreat, and Rose Leyburn was
troubled with him no more.

The result was that a certain brilliant young person was soon sharply
conscious of a sudden drop in the pleasures of living. Mr. Flaxman had
been the Leyburns' most constant and entertaining visitor. During the
whole of May he paid one formal call in Lerwick Gardens, and was then
entertained _tete-a-tete_ by Mrs. Leyburn, to Rose's intense subsequent
annoyance, who knew perfectly well that her mother was incapable of
chattering about anything but her daughters.

He still sent flowers, but they came from his head gardener, addressed
to Mrs. Leyburn. Agnes put them in water; and Rose never gave them a
look. Rose went to Lady Helen's because Lady Helen made her, and was
much too engaging a creature to be rebuffed; but, however merry and
protracted the teas in those scented rooms might be, Mr. Flaxman's step
on the stairs, and Mr. Flaxman's hand on the curtain over the door, till
now the feature in the entertainment most to be counted on, were,
generally speaking, conspicuously absent.

He and the Leyburns met, of course; for their list of common friends was
now considerable; but Agnes, reporting matters to Catherine, could only
say that each of these occasions left Rose more irritable, and more
inclined to say biting things as to the foolish ways in which society
takes its pleasures.

Rose certainly was irritable, and at times, Agnes thought, depressed.
But as usual she was unapproachable about her own affairs, and the state
of her mind could only be somewhat dolefully gathered from the fact that
she was much less unwilling to go back to Burwood this summer than had
ever been known before.

Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman left certain other people in no doubt as to his
intentions.

'My dear aunt,' he said calmly to Lady Charlotte, 'I mean to marry Miss
Leyburn if I can at any time persuade her to have me. So much you may
take as fixed, and it will be quite waste of breath on your part to
quote dukes to me. But the other factor in the problem is by no means
fixed. Miss Leyburn won't have me at present, and as for the future I
have most salutary qualms.'

'Hugh!' interrupted Lady Charlotte angrily, 'as if you hadn't had the
mothers of London at your feet for years!'

Lad