as he did so she frowned and cantered on. When he caught her she was
smiling, lifting her face to catch the raindrops which were falling fast.
She gave him just a nod, and waved her hand as a sign for him to go; and
when he would not, she frowned. He saw Bill Dennant, posting after them,
and, seized by a sense of the ridiculous, lifted his hat, and galloped
off.

The rain was coming down in torrents now, and every one was scurrying for
shelter. He looked back from the bend, and could still make out Antonia
riding leisurely, her face upturned, and revelling in the shower. Why
had n't she either cut him altogether or taken the sweets the gods had
sent? It seemed wicked to have wasted such a chance, and, ploughing back
to Hyde Park Corner, he turned his head to see if by any chance she had
relented.

His irritation was soon gone, but his longing stayed. Was ever anything
so beautiful as she had looked with her face turned to the rain? She
seemed to love the rain. It suited her--suited her ever so much better
than the sunshine of the South. Yes, she was very English! Puzzling and
fretting, he reached his rooms. Ferrand had not arrived, in fact did not
turn up that day. His non-appearance afforded Shelton another proof of
the delicacy that went hand in hand with the young vagrant's cynicism.
In the afternoon he received a note.

. . . You see, Dick [he read], I ought to have cut you; but I felt too
crazy--everything seems so jolly at home, even this stuffy old London.
Of course, I wanted to talk to you badly--there are heaps of things one
can't say by letter--but I should have been sorry afterwards. I told
mother. She said I was quite right, but I don't think she took it in.
Don't you feel that the only thing that really matters is to have an
ideal, and to keep it so safe that you can always look forward and feel
that you have been--I can't exactly express my meaning.

Shelton lit a cigarette and frowned. It seemed to him queer that she
should set more store by an "ideal" than by the fact that they had met
for the first and only time in many weeks.

"I suppose she 's right," he thought--"I suppose she 's right. I ought
not to have tried to speak to her!" As a matter of fact, he did not at
all feel that she was right.

CHAPTER XIII

AN "AT HOME"

On Tuesday morning he wandered off to Paddington, hoping for a chance
view of her on her way down to Holm Oaks; but the sense of the
ridiculous, o