ternoon with Irene, while he stole off to his pictures, after
his Sunday habit. At tea-time he came down to the drawing-room, and
found them talking, as he expressed it, nineteen to the dozen.

Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself that things were
taking the right turn. It was lucky she and Bosinney got on; she seemed
to be falling into line with the idea of the new house.

Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him to spring the five
hundred if necessary; but he hoped that the afternoon might have softened
Bosinney's estimates. It was so purely a matter which Bosinney could
remedy if he liked; there must be a dozen ways in which he could cheapen
the production of a house without spoiling the effect.

He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene was handing the
architect his first cup of tea. A chink of sunshine through the lace of
the blinds warmed her cheek, shone in the gold of her hair, and in her
soft eyes. Possibly the same gleam deepened Bosinney's colour, gave the
rather startled look to his face.

Soames hated sunshine, and he at once got up, to draw the blind. Then he
took his own cup of tea from his wife, and said, more coldly than he had
intended:

"Can't you see your way to do it for eight thousand after all? There must
be a lot of little things you could alter."

Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and answered:

"Not one!"

Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible point of
personal vanity.

"Well," he agreed, with sulky resignation; "you must have it your own
way, I suppose."

A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames rose too, to see him
off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high spirits. After
watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames returned moodily to the
drawing-room, where Irene was putting away the music, and, moved by an
uncontrollable spasm of curiosity, he asked:

"Well, what do you think of 'The Buccaneer'?"

He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer, and he had to wait
some time.

"I don't know," she said at last.

"Do you think he's good-looking?"

Irene smiled. And it seemed to Soames that she was mocking him.

"Yes," she answered; "very."

CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF AUNT ANN

There came a morning at the end of September when Aunt Ann was unable to
take from Smither's hands the insignia of personal dignity. After one
look at the old face, the doc