laughed at her jokes. Now he was always kind but he forgot
her when Evelyn was about. She turned rather moodily towards the arch
and saw Bernard standing in the gloom. His eyes were fixed on the
figures on the lawn and Carrie thought he looked annoyed, but he smiled
when he heard her step.

"They have left you alone?" he said. "Well, we must amuse each other,
and there are some flowers in the hot-house that I don't think you have
seen."

Carrie went with him thoughtfully. Bernard's remarks were often
oracular; he left one to guess what he meant, but she imagined his
glance was sympathetic. Although this was to some extent embarrassing,
she began to talk; and when they reached the hot-house he answered her
questions about the flowers with old-fashioned politeness. By and by
he glanced at a thermometer and pulling down a skylight turned to
Carrie, who was looking at the patches of glowing color that broke the
long banks of green.

"Beautiful things but fragile, and they have no smell," he said. "I
suppose we grow them because they cost us much. The flowers of the
bleak North are sweet."

By and by Jim came in and after a glance about exclaimed: "These are
very fine!"

"You have an eye for color," Bernard remarked. "Their beauty's almost
insolent; I don't know if it's strange that they are foul-feeders and
thrive on rottenness. Sometimes I think I'd give them all for the
cloudberry bloom I trampled on the moors when I was young. It feeds on
the melting snow and opens its chaste white cup nearest the sky."

"You declared you were not a sentimentalist," said Jim.

"Oh, well," said Bernard, "you must make allowances for an old man's
inconsistency." He turned as a car began to throb, and smiled at
Carrie. "One mustn't keep the engine running and I expect the others
are waiting. Come back soon and cheer me up."

He went with them to the steps, and when they drove off Jim was
thoughtful for a few minutes. He was glad Bernard liked Carrie, but
perhaps it was strange he had not urged Evelyn to come back. Bernard,
however, was puzzling; one could not understand his moods. Then Jim
forgot about it as Mrs. Winter began to talk.

A week later, four gentlemen sat one evening in the smoking-room at a
house on the rolling ground where the hills dip to the seaboard plain.
Three were rather fat, gray-haired, and solemn, and one was young. The
latter indicated a siphon and decanter on the table when Mordaunt ca