e was refreshed. "I begin to
think you are not so idiotic as I supposed."

"Waal," said Barker, suddenly affecting the accents of his native shore,
"I _ain't_ much on the drivel _this_ journey _any_how." The Duke
laughed; he always laughed at Americanisms.

"I guess _so_," said the Duke, trying ineffectually to mimic his friend.
Then he went on in his natural voice, "I have an idea."

"Keep it," said Barker; "they are scarce."

"No; seriously. If we must leave them alone, why--why should we not go
down and look at the yacht?"

"Not bad at all. As you say, we might go round and see how she looks.
Where is she?"

"Nice."

So the one went down and the other went round, but they went together,
and saw the yacht, and ran over to Monte Carlo, and had a good taste of
the dear old green-table, now that they could not have it in Baden any
longer. And they enjoyed the trip, and were temperate and well dressed
and cynical, after their kind. But Claudius stayed where he was.

CHAPTER VII.

The daily reading proceeded as usual after Barker's departure, but
neither Margaret nor Claudius mentioned the subject of the voyage.
Margaret was friendly, and sometimes seemed on the point of relapsing
into her old manner, but she always checked herself. What the precise
change was it would be hard to say. Claudius knew it was very easy to
feel the difference, but impossible to define it. As the days passed, he
knew also that his life had ceased to be his own; and, with the
chivalrous wholeness of purpose that was his nature, he took his soul
and laid it at her feet, for better for worse, to do with as she would.
But he knew the hour was not come yet wherein he should speak; and so he
served her in silence, content to feel the tree of life growing within
him, which should one day overshadow them both with its sheltering
branches. His service was none the less whole and devoted because it had
not yet been accepted.

One evening, nearly a week after they had been left to themselves,
Claudius was sitting over his solitary dinner in the casino restaurant
when a note was brought to him, a large square envelope of rough paper,
and he knew the handwriting. He hesitated to open it, and, glancing
round the brilliantly-lighted restaurant, involuntarily wondered if any
man at all those tables were that moment in such suspense as he. He
thought it was probably an intimation that she was going away, and that
he was wanted no longer. The