n the gloomy, fanatic glance of the master of the house.

If Mr. Saltire showed bad taste in so openly returning Mrs. van
Cannan's interest, it had to be admitted that it was the form of bad
taste that is a law unto itself and takes no thought of the opinion of
others. Although Africa had spoiled Saltire's complexion, it was
evident that she had never bowed his neck or put humility into his eye
or made him desist from looking over his boldly cut nose as though he
had bought the world and did not want it.

But to Christine Chaine it seemed that to cause pain to a man racked
with neuritis and jealousy for the sake of a mild flirtation with a
pretty woman was a cruel as well as a dangerous game. That was one of
the reasons why the friendliness of his morning greeting had been met
with such coldness. She had known heartlessness before in her life,
and wished no further acquaintance with it. That was the resolution
with which she hurried back through the straggling garden, the
whitewashed porch, and massive front door to the nursery.

The children, full of high spirits and wilfulness, were engaged in
their morning romp of trying to evade Meekie, the colored "nannie,"
whose business it was to bathe them.

They were extraordinarily lovable children, in spite of a certain
elf-like disobedience which possessed them like a disease. It was
quite enough to tell them not to do a thing for them to be eaten up
with a desire to do it forthwith. Christine had discovered this, and
had learned to manage them in other ways than by direct command.

"Take Roddy--no; take Coral, she is the dirtiest--no, no--Rita! Rita
is the pig!" they shrieked, as they pranced from bed to bed. "Bathe
yourself, old Meekie--you are the blackest of all."

Christine had her work cut out with them for the next half-hour, but at
last they were marshalled, sweet and shining, to breakfast, where she
presided, for their father always took an early breakfast, and Mrs. van
Cannan never rose until eleven. Afterward, according to custom, they
paid a visit to the latter's room, to wish her good-morning.

Isabel van Cannan was a big, lazy, laughing woman, with sleepy, golden
eyes. She spent hours in bed, lying, as she did now, amid quantities
of pillows, doing absolutely nothing. She had told Christine that she
was of Spanish extraction, yet she was blond as a Swede. Her hair,
which had a sort of lamb's-wool fluffiness, lay upon her pillows in two
great