o and see her to-morrow. We shall neither of us be in a position to
reproach the other. But I'll see what I can do. But Haddington! To think
she should get round him again!"

CHAPTER IX.

The Battle of Baden.

Lord Rickmansworth was enjoying himself. Over and above the particular
pleasures for whose sake he had come to Baden, he relished intensely the
new attitude in which he found himself standing toward Ayre. Throughout
their previous acquaintance it had been Rickmansworth who was eager and
excited, Ayre who applied the cold water. Now the parts were reversed,
and the younger man found great solace in jocosely rallying his senior
on his unwonted zeal and activity. Ayre accepted his friend's jocosity
and his own excitement with equal placidity. Reproaches had never
stirred him to exertion; ridicule would not stop him now. He took leave
to add himself to the materials for slightly contemptuous amusement that
the world had hitherto afforded him, and he found his own absurd actions
a very sensible addition to his resources. He realized why people who
never act on impulse and never do uncalled-for things are not only dull
to others, but suffer boredom themselves. However the Millstead
love-affairs affected the principal actors, there can be no question
that they relieved Sir Roderick Ayre from _ennui_ for a considerable
number of months and exercised a very wholesome effect on a man who had
come to take pride in his own miserable incapacity for honest emotion.

He rose the next morning as nearly with the lark as could reasonably be
expected; more nearly with the lark than the domestic staff of the
Badischerhof at all approved of. Was not Kate Bernard in the habit of
taking the waters at half-past seven? And in solitude? For Haddington's
devotion was not allowed by him to interfere with that early ride which
is so often a mark of legislators, and an assertion, I suppose, of the
strain on their minds that might be ignored or doubted if not backed up
by some such evidence. The strain, of course, followed Haddington to
Baden; it was among his most precious appurtenances; and Ayre, relying
upon it, had little doubt that he could succeed in finding Kate alone
and unprotected.

He was not deceived. He found Kate just disposing of her draught, and an
offer of his company for a stroll was accepted with tolerable
graciousness. Kate distrusted him, but she thought there was use in
keeping on outwardly good terms; and she