w; but--er--don't you see--he wants to be
_alone_ with her."

"I don't doubt him," says Dicky Browne. "So should I, if I got the
chance."

Sir Mark shrugs his shoulders; there isn't much to be got out of Dicky.

"That goes without telling," he says; "you are always prowling around
after her, for no reason that I can see. But you haven't grasped my
idea, he--he's _in love_ with her, and _you_ aren't, I suppose?"

"I don't see why you should suppose anything of the kind," says Dicky,
bitterly aggrieved because of the word "prowling." "I can be as much in
love with her as another, can't I, if I like? In fact," valiantly, "I
think I _am_ in love with her."

"Oh, you be hanged!" says Sir Mark, forcibly, if vulgarly, turning away
from him in high disgust.

"Well, you needn't cut up so rough about nothing," says Dicky, following
him. "He has had his chance of being alone with her, now, hasn't he? and
see the result."

And when Sir Mark turns his eyes in the direction where Portia sits, lo!
he finds Fabian gone, and Miss Vibart sitting silent and motionless as a
statue, and as pale and cold as one, with a look of fixed determination
in her beautiful eyes, that yet hardly hides the touch of anguish that
lies beneath.

Meantime Dulce and Roger are sparring covertly, but decidedly, while
Julia, who never sees anything, is fostering the dispute by unmeant, but
most ill judging remarks. Stephen Gower has gone away from them to have
a cigarette in the shrubberies.

Sir Mark and Dicky Browne are carrying on an argument, that in all human
probability will last their time.

"I can't bear Mrs. Mildmay," says Dulce, _apropos_ of nothing. Mrs.
Mildmay is the Rector's wife, and a great friend of Roger's.

"But why?" says Julia, "she is a nice little woman enough, isn't she?"

"Is she? I don't know. To me she is utterly distasteful; such a voice,
and such--"

"She is at least gentle and well-mannered," interrupts Roger,
unpleasantly.

"Well, yes, there is a great deal in that," says Julia, which innocent
remark incenses Dulce to the last degree, as it gives her the impression
that Julia is taking Roger's part against her.

"I daresay she is an angel," she says, fractiously; "but I am not
sufficiently heavenly-minded myself to admire her inanities. Do you
know," looking broadly at Roger, "there are some people one hates
without exactly knowing why? It is, I suppose, a Doctor Fell sort of
dislike, 'the reason why I cannot t