security, comfort, to fortify the, at best, doubtful
position of life in death for her. Yet he acknowledged to himself that
this regard for her safety was mostly the result of his own inner, blind
striving. Her happiness had magically become his. Beyond that he was
unable to penetrate.

After supper they gathered in the chamber beyond the dining room. Here
Jasper Penny found an incongruous mingling of old and new furniture.
There was a high, waxed walnut desk and cabinet, severely simple, and
before it a chair with a back of elaborately carved and gilded tulips
tufted in plum-coloured velvet. The thick carpet was a deep rose, and
the drapery of the mantel and windows garnet. A painted hood of
brilliant Chinese colours had been fastened before what was evidently an
open hearth, for which a coal stove was substituted. On the middle of
the floor was an oriental hassock in silver brocade; while a corner held
a spinet-piano decorated in roseate cupids, flower sprays and gold leaf.
Again, an old clock in Spanish mahogany, with a rudely painted glass
door, had been left on the wall.

Mary Jannan, at the piano, wove a delicate succession of arpeggios. She
sang, in a small and graceful voice, a cavatina, _Tanti Palpiti_. Then,
"Ah, que les amours ... de beaux heurs." Jasper Penny listened with an
unconscious, approving pretence of understanding. But when, in the
course of her repertoire, she reached _Sweet Sister Fay_, and _The Horn
of My Loved One I Hear_, his pleasure became active. Susan Brundon, on
the hassock, lifted her sensitive face to the mild candle light, and its
still pallor gave him a shock of delight. Her hands were folded in the
voluminous sweep of her crinoline; the ribbons at her breast rose and
fell softly.

Jasper Penny and Graham were smoking long, fragrant cigars that the
former had produced from a lacquered case, and Jannan had the
ingredients of the hot punch at his elbow. It amused the young man to
persuade Susan Brandon to take a sip from his glass; and they all
laughed at her subsequent gasping. Jasper Penny was astoundingly happy;
his being radiated a warmth and contentment more potent than that of the
St. Croix rum. It was accompanied by an extraordinary lightness of
spirit, a feeling of the desirability of life. The memory of his greying
hair had left him; not, it was true, to be replaced by the surging
emotions of youth, but by a deep satisfaction.

Susan Brundon, Susan ... the right woman. He