eing impossible to have romances
with people one didn't know. And in this case the fact that Harry was
very fond of Romer made the temptation far greater, as he explained;
Harry being (as he pointed out) so very sensitive and highly strung that
he could never, somehow, be really attracted by a woman whose husband
was not sympathetic to him. Which point of view Van Buren, shaking his
head, regarded as unsound.

Harry now spent much time giving picturesque sketches and impressions of
his feelings to his friend, for he had an almost feminine love of
talking over personal affairs to the sympathetic. In his benevolence Van
Buren longed to protect Valentia and Romer, and to give Miss Walmer all
she wanted; but most of all his idea was to save Harry from himself, so
he always accepted with alacrity invitations to the Green Gate for
altruistic reasons. Besides, his desire to see Daphne, although she was
now becoming more and more remote to him, was still persistent, if a
little less vivid.

"I've had a beautiful womanly letter from Alec to-day," Harry confided
in Van as soon as he arrived. "You know the sort of thing she writes:
all in jerks and subaltern's slang. With sincere sentiment showing
between the lines. And I answered it."

"A beautiful manly letter, I hope? I'm sure you could do that as well as
any one, Harry."

Harry smiled.

"Oh, just some vague, cautious slosh, not unamusing in its way--it'll
_get_ there all right."

"Yes, Harry, I know, but I do hope----Ah, Miss Daphne, how beautiful
your England is looking to-day! In America we never have a day like
this, warm and yet cool, with all those nice, white, fleecy clouds in
the sky. Our atmosphere is always so hard and clear. Now this garden
with those large trees is just like a Corot. They _are_ fine trees.
Poplars, I presume?"

"You _do_ presume," smiled Daphne; "I don't know what they are, but I'm
perfectly sure they're not poplars."

"Oh yes--I'm wrong. They're oaks, I've no doubt." He hummed, "'The oak
and the ash and the bonny ivy tree.' Do let's walk over and look at them
closer, Miss Daphne."

"I'm afraid I can't. Tea's ready."

To his annoyance Van was obliged to follow Daphne and join the group
round the tea-table. He declined with some formality of manner to accept
the glass of iced water Daphne offered him, and looked at her with that
look of tender, fixed, respectful reproach that had the effect of
irritating her very nearly to the point of