't touch a morsel, mother; it is useless to ask him. He is going
away just as soon as we have finished packing."

"But where is he going? I didn't know that he had any place to go to."

"Oh, a man can always find a place somewhere."

"How can you take it so lightly, Susan," protested Mrs. Treadwell,
beginning to cry.

"That's the only sensible way to take it, isn't it, Oliver?" asked
Susan, gaily.

"Don't get into a fidget about me, Aunt Belinda," said Oliver, pushing
the pile of newspapers out of her way, while she sat down nervously on
the end of a packing-case and wiped her eyes on the fringe of her purple
shawl. The impulsive kindness with which he had spoken to her a few
hours before had vanished from his tone, and left in its place an accent
of irritation. His sympathy, which was never assumed, resulted so
entirely from his mood that it was practically independent of the person
or situation which appeared to inspire it. There were moments when,
because of a sensation of mental or physical well-being, he overflowed
with a feeling of tenderness for the beggar at the crossing; and there
were longer periods, following a sudden despondency, when the suffering
of his closest friend aroused in him merely a sense of personal outrage.
So complete, indeed, was his absorption in himself, that even his
philosophy was founded less upon an intellectual conception of the
universe than it was upon an intense preoccupation with his own
personality.

"But you don't mean that you are going for good?--that you'll never come
back to see Susan and me again?" whimpered his aunt, while her sagging
mouth trembled.

"You can't expect me to come back after the things Uncle Cyrus has said
to me."

A look so bitter that it was almost venomous crept into Mrs. Treadwell's
face. "He just did it to worry me, Oliver. He has done everything he
could think of to worry me ever since he persuaded me to marry him. I
sometimes believe," she added, gloating over the idea like a decayed
remnant of the aristocratic spirit, "that he has always been jealous of
me because I was born a Bolingbroke."

To Oliver, who had not like Susan grown accustomed through constant
repetition to Mrs. Treadwell's delusion, this appeared so fresh a view
of Cyrus's character, that it caught his interest even in the midst of
his own absorbing perplexities. Until he saw Susan's head shake
ominously over her mother's shoulder, it did not occur to him that his
aunt, who