this
thing of Katherine Asterick's; I believe it's simply because she's got a
title."

"One must read a book for some reason or other," answered Shelton.

"Well," returned Mrs. Dennant, "I hate doin' things just because other
people do them, and I sha'n't get it."

"Good!"

Mrs. Dennant marked the catalogue.

"Here 's Linseed's last, of course; though I must say I don't care for
him, but I suppose we ought to have it in the house. And there's
Quality's 'The Splendid Diatribes': that 's sure to be good, he's always
so refined. But what am I to do about this of Arthur Baal's? They say
that he's a charlatan, but everybody reads him, don't you know"; and over
the catalogue Shelton caught the gleam of hare-like eyes.

Decision had vanished from her face, with its arched nose and slightly
sloping chin, as though some one had suddenly appealed to her to trust
her instincts. It was quite pathetic. Still, there was always the
book's circulation to form her judgment by.

"I think I 'd better mark it," she said, "don't you? Were you lookin'
for Antonia? If you come across Bunyan in the garden, Dick, do say I
want to see him; he's gettin' to be a perfect nuisance. I can understand
his feelin's, but really he 's carryin' it too far."

Primed with his message to the under-gardener, Shelton went. He took a
despairing look into the billiard-room. Antonia was not there. Instead,
a tall and fat-cheeked gentleman with a neat moustache, called Mabbey,
was practising the spot-stroke. He paused as Shelton entered, and,
pouting like a baby, asked in a sleepy voice,

"Play me a hundred up?"

Shelton shook his head, stammered out his sorrow, and was about to go.

The gentleman called Mabbey, plaintively feeling the places where his
moustaches joined his pink and glossy cheeks, asked with an air of some
surprise,

"What's your general game, then?"

"I really don't know," said Shelton.

The gentleman called Mabbey chalked his cue, and, moving his round,
knock-kneed legs in their tight trousers, took up his position for the
stroke.

"What price that?" he said, as he regained the perpendicular; and his
well-fed eyes followed Shelton with sleepy inquisition. "Curious dark
horse, Shelton," they seemed to say.

Shelton hurried out, and was about to run down the lower lawn, when he
was accosted by another person walking in the sunshine--a slight-built
man in a turned-down collar, with a thin and fair moustache, and a fa