s compatible with that condition, his answers had not
appeared to Paula to be particularly evasive, the conjuncture being one
in which a handsome heiress's shrewdness was prone to overleap itself
by setting down embarrassment on the part of the man she questioned to a
mere lover's difficulty in steering between honour and rivalry.

She put but one other question. 'Did it appear as if he, Mr. Somerset,
after telegraphing, had--had--regretted doing so, and evaded the result
by not keeping the appointment?'

'That's just how it appears.' The words, which saved Dare from ignominy,
cost De Stancy a good deal. He was sorry for Somerset, sorry for
himself, and very sorry for Paula. But Dare was to De Stancy what
Somerset could never be: and 'for his kin that is near unto him shall a
man be defiled.'

After that interview Charlotte saw with warring impulses that Somerset
slowly diminished in Paula's estimate; slowly as the moon wanes, but as
certainly. Charlotte's own love was of a clinging, uncritical sort, and
though the shadowy intelligence of Somerset's doings weighed down her
soul with regret, it seemed to make not the least difference in her
affection for him.

In the afternoon the whole party, including De Stancy, drove about the
streets. Here they looked at the house in which Goethe had lived, and
afterwards entered the cathedral. Observing in the south transept
a crowd of people waiting patiently, they were reminded that they
unwittingly stood in the presence of the popular clock-work of
Schwilgue.

Mr. Power and Mrs. Goodman decided that they would wait with the rest of
the idlers and see the puppets perform at the striking. Charlotte also
waited with them; but as it wanted eight minutes to the hour, and as
Paula had seen the show before, she moved on into the nave.

Presently she found that De Stancy had followed. He did not come close
till she, seeing him stand silent, said, 'If it were not for this
cathedral, I should not like the city at all; and I have even seen
cathedrals I like better. Luckily we are going on to Baden to-morrow.'

'Your uncle has just told me. He has asked me to keep you company.'

'Are you intending to?' said Paula, probing the base-moulding of a pier
with her parasol.

'I have nothing better to do, nor indeed half so good,' said De Stancy.
'I am abroad for my health, you know, and what's like the Rhine and its
neighbourhood in early summer, before the crowd comes? It is delightful