ty
of the stone lion's neighbourhood, but he had been for some moments
furtively watching them both, himself lost to view in the crowd about
the band-stand. She would have been surprised indeed if she could have
guessed the effect upon the sprightly cavalier of this new evidence of
the confidential relations existing between herself and his friend; and
indeed, when a moment later he met them, with a facetious sally, it is
doubtful whether anything short of clairvoyance could have divined his
true state of mind.

For Oliver Kenwick was experiencing something as closely resembling
genuine feeling as was like to befall him in the course of his
discreetly regulated career. He had played with fire once too often, and
he had discovered, not without a slight accession of self-respect, that
he was perceptibly scorched. He had supposed his interest in May Beverly
to be purely impersonal; he had been mistaken. He had admired her in his
character of connoisseur, as a man of the world he had found amusement
and relaxation in her society. For May had the unique advantage of
combining that degree of conventionality which is admissibly essential,
with a refreshing lack of conventionality in non-essentials. She had
repeatedly surprised and stimulated him, she had never yet offended his
taste. And Kenwick was nothing if not fastidious. Her attraction had
been undeniably heightened by his imagined discovery of Geoffry
Daymond's interest in her; but quite independently of that artificial
stimulus, she did exercise a strong fascination over him.

It was not in Oliver Kenwick's scheme of life to sacrifice his
independence to any claim, even to that of his own unchastened fancies.
He would not have known himself in any other role than that of
free-lance, and life would indeed have lost its savour if he had been
betrayed into the purchase of an indulgence of feeling at the cost of
his self-approval. He possessed an ideal of himself which he prized and
guarded; if the ideal was a questionable one, judged by ordinary
standards, he was at least consistent in its cultivation. If, impelled
by a spirit of rivalry, if, goaded to something approaching rashness by
the contemplation of Geof's quiet, masterful way of taking possession of
the things he coveted, he resolved to retaliate where retaliation was
peculiarly palatable, this indicated no change whatever in his ultimate
intentions.

For a day or two after the little episode of the stone lion K