as their terms are extremely mod--'_

Bruce rushed to the door and called out:

'Edith! Sorry! Edie, I say, I'm sorry. Come back.'

There was no answer.

He pushed the letter under the door of her room, and said through the
keyhole:

'Edith, look here, I'm just going for a little walk. I'll be back to
dinner. Don't be angry.'

Bruce brought her home a large bunch of Parma violets. But neither of
them ever referred to the question again, and for some time there was a
little less of the refrain of 'Am I master in my own house, or am I
not?'

The next morning, when a long letter came from Aylmer, from Spain,
Edith read it at breakfast and Bruce didn't ask a single question.
However, she left it on his plate, as if by mistake. He might just as
well read it.

CHAPTER XV

Mavis Argles

Vincy had the reputation of spending his fortune with elaborate yet
careful lavishness, buying nothing that he did not enjoy, and giving
away everything he did not want. At the same time his friends
occasionally wondered on what he _did_ spend both his time and his
money. He was immensely popular, quite sought after socially; but he
declined half his invitations and lived a rather quiet existence in the
small flat, with its Oriental decorations and violent post-impressions
and fierce Chinese weapons, high up in Victoria Street. Vincy really
concealed under an amiable and gentle exterior the kindest heart of any
man in London. There was 'more in him than met the eye,' as people say,
and, frank and confidential as he was to his really intimate friends,
at least one side of his life was lived in shadow. It was his secret
romance with a certain young girl artist, whom he saw rarely, for
sufficient reasons. He was not devoted to her in the way that he was to
Edith, for whom he had the wholehearted enthusiasm of a loyal friend,
and the idolising worship of a fanatic admirer. It was perhaps Vincy's
nature, a little, to sacrifice himself for anyone he was fond of. He
spent a great deal of time thinking out means of helping materially the
young art-student, and always he succeeded in this object by his
elaborate and tactful care. For he knew she was very, very poor, and
that her pride was of an old-fashioned order--she never said she was
hard up, as every modern person does, whether rich or poor, but he knew
that she really lacked what he considered very nearly--if not
quite--the necessities of life.

Vincy's feeling for her was a cu