the Sisters; once in the
Market Square, and always the sight had roused in him the same intolerable
resentment and gnawing pain that rankled in him now as he watched them.

What was Beauvayse whispering, so close to the delicate little ear that
nestled under the red-brown hair-waves? Something that set his grey-green
eyes gleaming dangerously, and lifted the wings of the fine nostrils, and
opened the boldly-curved mouth in audacious laughter, under the short
golden hairs of the clipped moustache. Somehow that laughter stung Saxham.
His muscular hand gripped the old hunting-crop that he carried by habit
even when he did not ride, and his black brows were thunderous as he
vainly tried to listen to the little woman who chattered beside him.

"Look about you," she bade him, putting up her tortoiseshell-rimmed
eyeglasses as though she were in a picture-gallery or at a theatre.
"Wouldn't the ordinary unimaginative person suppose that Love would be the
last flower to blossom in the soil of this battered little bit of
debatable ground? But we know better. So does Miss Wiercke, the German
oculist's daughter, and so does that tallow-candle-locked young man who
plays the harmonium at the Catholic Church. And that other pretty girl--I
don't know her name--who used to keep the book-registers at the Public
Library. She is going to marry that young mining-engineer--a Cornishman,
judging by his blue eyes and black hair--do you happen to be Cornish,
too?--next Sunday. And the uncertainty about living till then or any time
after Monday morning will make quite a commonplace wedding into something
tremendously romantic. But you don't even pretend to look when you're
told. Aha!" she cried; "I've caught you. You were watching another pair of
lovers--the couple I kept for the last."

"Not at all," said Saxham, inexpressibly wearied by the voluble little
woman's discourse. Ignoring the conventional disclaimer, Lady Hannah went
on:

"They're in the early stage--the First Act of the dear old play. Pretty to
watch, isn't it? Though it makes one feel chilly and grown old, as
Browning or somebody says. Only the other day one was tipping that boy at
Eton, and he looking such a Fourth of June darling as you never saw, got
up in duck trousers and a braided blue jacket, and a straw hat with a
wreath of white and crimson Banksia roses round it for the Procession of
Boats. And now"--she sighed drolly--"he's a long-legged Lieutenant of
Hussars, with a