set slowly, as he
approached her; 'and you have judged rightly that it is the cause of
my call.' He sat down near her chair as he spoke, put down his hat, and
drew a note-book from his pocket with a despairing sang froid that was
far more perfect than had been Paula's demeanour just before.

'Perhaps you would like to talk over the business with Mr. Somerset
alone?' murmured Charlotte to Miss Power, hardly knowing what she said.

'O no,' said Paula, 'I think not. Is it necessary?' she said, turning to
him.

'Not in the least,' replied he, bestowing a penetrating glance upon
his questioner's face, which seemed however to produce no effect; and
turning towards Charlotte, he added, 'You will have the goodness, I am
sure, Miss De Stancy, to excuse the jargon of professional details.'

He spread some tracings on the table, and pointed out certain modified
features to Paula, commenting as he went on, and exchanging occasionally
a few words on the subject with Mr. Abner Power by the distant window.

In this architectural dialogue over his sketches, Somerset's head and
Paula's became unavoidably very close. The temptation was too much for
the young man. Under cover of the rustle of the tracings, he murmured,
'Paula, I could not get here before!' in a low voice inaudible to the
other two.

She did not reply, only busying herself the more with the notes and
sketches; and he said again, 'I stayed a couple of days at Genoa, and
some days at San Remo, and Mentone.'

'But it is not the least concern of mine where you stayed, is it?' she
said, with a cold yet disquieted look.

'Do you speak seriously?' Somerset brokenly whispered.

Paula concluded her examination of the drawings and turned from him with
sorrowful disregard. He tried no further, but, when she had signified
her pleasure on the points submitted, packed up his papers, and rose
with the bearing of a man altogether superior to such a class of
misfortune as this. Before going he turned to speak a few words of a
general kind to Mr. Power and Charlotte.

'You will stay and dine with us?' said the former, rather with the air
of being unhappily able to do no less than ask the question. 'My charges
here won't go down to the table-d'hote, I fear, but De Stancy and myself
will be there.'

Somerset excused himself, and in a few minutes withdrew. At the door
he looked round for an instant, and his eyes met Paula's. There was the
same miles-off expression in hers that the