You are unjust," he said somewhat bitterly. "It is not kind of you to
say such things."

"If a friend suddenly develops a distaste for one's company and
manifests it as markedly as you have, how can one be blind to it? You
are a changed man, Morgan. In two months you have come here once to
tea, and you had not even the decency to put on a cheerful face. Such
a lackadaisical expression you had! And not even an enquiry about my
great works. You seemed to be saying the whole time, 'How you
commonplace people depress me--me, the genius, the genius; you are
killing my inspiration.'"

Something in his look checked her.

"Genius suffers from fits of melancholy as well as from fits of
inspiration," he reminded her.

"Poor Morgan!" said Margaret, softening. "And so you've had a fit of
melancholy! What a long one, too! All the same, I ought to reproach
you for not believing in our sympathy. Well, I suppose now I may tell
mamma not to be afraid to send you a card for our dance next month."

"I had no idea your mamma was so timid a person," he said, with
successful evasion. "And how goes Chiron, how the Spanish marauder?
And how much did you get for them?" he went on gaily, in one breath.
"You see I am well posted in your affairs."

"Well, since you _are_ a little bit interested, come."

Instinctively they looked towards the other group. Archibald still
harangued Mrs. Medhurst, endeavouring to prove to her that John's
abilities were no merit of his, any more than her beauty was a merit
of hers. A happy accident was the cause of either, and he had been
intellectually wrong in lavishing so many compliments on her during
all these years.

Morgan and Margaret left the room quietly, and stole up the stairs on
tip-toe, like two children at play. Right on the top landing Margaret
threw open a door, and Morgan peered into a shadowy abyss, for the one
gaslight was round a corner by which its rays were cut off from this
part of the landing.

"The candle is on a ledge in the hall," explained Margaret,
disappearing within the darkness; and in a second he heard her strike
a light.

"This is the hall," she went on. "I insisted on pa having it
partitioned off from the rest of the room--though, as you see, only by
a sort of green baize screen that doesn't reach to the ceiling. But it
makes the place ever so much more romantic."

Morgan stepped into the tiny vestibule, which was fitted with a little
oak table, and passed through a do