business,
or whether it was owing to the apparent superior maturity of Mrs.
Harcourt and the stranger, it was certain that THEY arranged the
practical details of the engagement, and that the youthful husband sat
silent, merely offering his always hopeful and sanguine consent.

"You'll take a house nearer to town, I suppose?" continued Mr. Fletcher
to the lady, "though you've a charming view here. I suppose it was quite
a change from Tasajara and your father-in-law's house? I daresay he had
as fine a place there--on his own homestead--as he has here?"

Young Harcourt dropped his sensitive eyelids again. It seemed hard that
he could never get away from these allusions to his father! Perhaps it
was only to that relationship that he was indebted for his visitor's
kindness. In his simple honesty he could not bear the thought of such
a misapprehension. "Perhaps, Mr. Fletcher, you do not know," he said,
"that my father is not on terms with me, and that we neither expect
anything nor could we ever take anything from him. Could we, Loo?" He
added the useless question partly because he saw that his wife's face
betrayed little sympathy with him, and partly that Fletcher was looking
at her curiously, as if for confirmation. But this was another of John
Milton's trials as an imaginative reporter; nobody ever seemed to care
for his practical opinions or facts!

"Mr. Fletcher is not interested in our little family differences,
Milty," she said, looking at Mr. Fletcher, however, instead of him.
"You're Daniel Harcourt's SON whatever happens."

The cloud that had passed over the young man's face and eyes did not,
however, escape Mr. Fletcher's attention, for he smiled, and added
gayly, "And I hope my valued lieutenant in any case." Nevertheless John
Milton was quite ready to avail himself of an inspiration to fetch some
cigars for his guest from the bar of the Sea-View House on the slope of
the hill beyond, and thereby avoid a fateful subject. Once in the fresh
air again he promptly recovered his boyish spirits. The light flying
scud had already effaced the first rising stars; the lower creeping
sea-fog had already blotted out the western shore and sea; but below him
to the east the glittering lights of the city seemed to start up with a
new, mysterious, and dazzling brilliancy. It was the valley of diamonds
that Sindbad saw lying almost at his feet! Perhaps somewhere there the
light of his own fame and fortune was already beginning