way it was a poem. But while his arms
were still round her she looked towards the window, wondering whether
he had seen her ride up to the door accompanied by the very youthful
officer in the Guards.

"And, Jack--do you know," she went on, "all the newspapers have been
full of you. You are quite a celebrity. And are you really as rich as
they say?"

Jack Meredith was conscious of a very slight check--it was not exactly a
jar. His feeling was that rather of a man who thinks that he is swimming
in deep water, and finds suddenly that he can touch the bottom.

"I think I can safely say that I am not," he answered.

And it was from that eminently practical point that they departed into
the future--arranging that same, and filling up its blanks with all the
wisdom of lovers and the rest of us.

Lady Cantourne left them there for nearly an hour, in which space of
time she probably reflected they could build up as rosy a future as was
good for them to contemplate. Then she returned to the drawing-room,
followed by a full-sized footman bearing tea.

She was too discreet a woman--too deeply versed in the sudden changes of
the human mind and heart--to say anything until one of them should give
her a distinct lead. They were not shy and awkward children. Perhaps she
reflected that the generation to which they belonged is not one heavily
handicapped by too subtle a delicacy of feeling.

Jack Meredith gave her the lead before long.

"Millicent," he said, without a vestige of embarrassment, "has consented
to be openly engaged now."

Lady Cantourne nodded comprehensively.

"I think she is very wise," she said.

There was a little pause.

"I KNOW she is very wise," she added, turning and laying her hand on
Jack's arm. The two phrases had quite a different meaning. "She will
have a good husband."

"So you can tell EVERYBODY now," chimed in Millicent in her silvery way.
She was blushing and looking very pretty with her hair blown about
her ears by her last canter with the youthful officer, who was at that
moment riding pensively home with a bunch of violets in his coat which
had not been there when he started from the stable.

She had found out casually from Jack that Guy Oscard was exiled vaguely
to the middle of Africa for an indefinite period. The rest--the youthful
officer and the others--did not give her much anxiety. They, she argued
to herself, had nothing to bring against her. They may have THOUGHT
things--but w