marry some one else, let us hope, before her
wedding-dress goes out of fashion."

"Millicent will have to get over it as she may. Her feelings need
scarcely be taken into consideration."

Lady Cantourne made a little movement towards the door. There was much
to see to--much of that women's work which makes weddings the wild,
confused ceremonies that they are.

"I am afraid," said Sir John, "that I never thought of taking them into
consideration. As you know, I hardly considered yours. I hope I have not
overdrawn that reserve."

He had crossed the room as he spoke to open the door for her. His
fingers were on the handle, but he did not turn it, awaiting her answer.
She did not look at him, but past him towards the shaded lamp with that
desire to fix her attention upon some inanimate object which he knew of
old.

"The reserve," she answered, "will stand more than that. It has
accumulated--with compound interest. But I deny the debt of which you
spoke just now. There is no debt. I have paid it, year by year, day
by day. For each one of those fifty years of unhappiness I have paid a
year--of regret."

He opened the door and she passed out into the brilliantly lighted
passage and down the stairs, where the servants were waiting to open the
door and help her to her carriage.

Sir John did not go downstairs with her.

Later on he dined in his usual solitary grandeur. He was as carefully
dressed as ever. The discipline of his household--like the discipline
under which he held himself--was unrelaxed.

"What wine is this?" he asked when he had tasted the port.

"Yellow seal, sir," replied the butler confidentially.

Sir John sipped again.

"It is a new bin," he said.

"Yes, sir. First bottle of the lower bin, sir."

Sir John nodded with an air of self-satisfaction. He was pleased to have
proved to himself and to the "damned butler," who had caught him napping
in the library, that he was still a young man in himself, with senses
and taste unimpaired. But his hand was at the small of his back as he
returned to the library.

He was not at all sure about Jack--did not know whether to expect him or
not. Jack did not always do what one might have expected him to do under
given circumstances. And Sir John rather liked him for it. Perhaps it
was that small taint of heredity which is in blood, and makes it thicker
than water.

"Nothing like blood, sir," he was in the habit of saying, "in horses,
dogs, and men." And t