int
bluish tint on one side of his high forehead, caused by a network of thin
veins. His face had something of the youthful, optimistic, stained-glass
look peculiar to the refined English type. He walked elastically, yet
with trim precision, as if he had a pleasant taste in furniture and
churches, and held the Spectator in his hand.

"Ah, Shelton!" he said in high-tuned tones, halting his legs in such an
easy attitude that it was impossible to interrupt it: "come to take the
air?"

Shelton's own brown face, nondescript nose, and his amiable but dogged
chin contrasted strangely with the clear-cut features of the
stained-glass man.

"I hear from Halidome that you're going to stand for Parliament," the
latter said.

Shelton, recalling Halidome's autocratic manner of settling other
people's business, smiled.

"Do I look like it?" he asked.

The eyebrows quivered on the stained-glass man. It had never occurred to
him, perhaps, that to stand for Parliament a man must look like it; he
examined Shelton with some curiosity.

"Ah, well," he said, "now you mention it, perhaps not." His eyes, so
carefully ironical, although they differed from the eyes of Mabbey, also
seemed to ask of Shelton what sort of a dark horse he was.

"You 're still in the Domestic Office, then?" asked Shelton.

The stained-glass man stooped to sniff a rosebush. "Yes," he said; "it
suits me very well. I get lots of time for my art work."

"That must be very interesting," said Shelton, whose glance was roving
for Antonia; "I never managed to begin a hobby."

"Never had a hobby!" said the stained-glass man, brushing back his hair
(he was walking with no hat); "why, what the deuce d' you do?"

Shelton could not answer; the idea had never troubled him.

"I really don't know," he said, embarrassed; "there's always something
going on, as far as I can see."

The stained-glass man placed his hands within his pockets, and his bright
glance swept over his companion.

"A fellow must have a hobby to give him an interest in life," he said.

"An interest in life?" repeated Shelton grimly; "life itself is good
enough for me."

"Oh!" replied the stained-glass man, as though he disapproved of
regarding life itself as interesting.

"That's all very well, but you want something more than that. Why don't
you take up woodcarving?"

"Wood-carving?"

"The moment I get fagged with office papers and that sort of thing I take
up my wood-carving; goo