't wonder," May declared; "there's nothing like Venice.
Still, you live abroad half the time, and can come here whenever you
please."

"Ah, Miss May!" he exclaimed, and this time he was absolutely sincere.
"Venice will never be the same to me again."

She could not altogether misunderstand his meaning, but it was
impossible to take him very seriously, and, prompted by a not too lively
curiosity, she asked: "Then why do you go?"

"Because it would be wrong for me to stay," he replied, with a subdued,
almost convincing emphasis.

"Then of course you must go," she returned, with the youthful decision
that rarely failed her; adding, consolingly, as her eyes wandered back
to the sunset: "And I've no doubt you will enjoy the _Urania_ quite as
much as Venice."

XV

June Roses

As Kenwick stood, the next morning, on the deck of the beautiful
pleasure-boat for whose splendours he had betrayed so lively an
appreciation, he looked back across the widening distance with a sense
of regret more poignant than he was at all prepared to deal with. Even
when they were actually weighing anchor, he found himself considering
the feasibility of a retreat, and now, as the screw turned, and the water,
on whose tranquil bosom he had floated so peacefully, was churned into a
seething froth, a sickening misgiving seized him. Had he paid too high a
price to preserve the integrity of his scheme of life?--or rather,--he
hastened to correct himself,--had he made too great a sacrifice to the
claims of friendship? That was the more consoling view to take. He had
done the handsome thing and he would not flinch,--especially since he
could not now do so without making himself ridiculous.

Kenwick refrained from asking himself why he should consider Daymond's
claim paramount to his own; he was not given to searching analysis of
his own motives. The man who values his illusions soon learns the best
way of preserving them, and the illusion in question was doubly
valuable, since it bade fair, under judicious tending, to invest the
mythical Oliver Kenwick, already so dear to his imagination, with a
nimbus of romantic devotion most agreeable to contemplate.

His fellow-passengers were a talkative and somewhat egotistical company,
and he was left more completely to himself, for the first few moments
than, on ordinary occasions, he would have found quite to his mind. No
one was likely to note the persistency with which his glance returned to
o