. And now she
had determined to part with the old place, the sooner the better! She
said that smiling; and Redworth smiled, outwardly and inwardly. Her talk
of her affairs was clearer to him than her curiosity for the mysteries
of the League. He gained kind looks besides warm thanks by the promise
to seek a purchaser; especially by his avoidance of prying queries. She
wanted just this excellent automaton fac-totum; and she referred him
to Mr. Braddock for the title-deeds, et caetera--the chirping phrase of
ladies happily washing their hands of the mean details of business.

'How of your last work?' he asked her.

Serenest equanimity rejoined: 'As I anticipated, it is not popular.
The critics are of one mind with the public. You may have noticed, they
rarely flower above that rocky surface. THE CANTATRICE sings them a
false note. My next will probably please them less.'

Her mobile lips and brows shot the faint upper-wreath of a smile
hovering. It was designed to display her philosophy.

'And what is the name of your next?' said he.

'I name it THE MAN OF TWO MINDS, if you can allow that to be in nature.'

'Contra-distinguished from the woman?'

'Oh! you must first believe the woman to have one.'

'You are working on it?'

'By fits. And I forgot, Mr. Redworth: I have mislaid my receipts, and
must ask you for the address of your wine-merchant;--or, will you?
Several dozen of the same wines. I can trust him to be in awe of you,
and the good repute of my table depends on his honesty.'

Redworth took the definite order for a large supply of wine.

She gave him her hand: a lost hand, dear to hold, needing to be guided,
he feared. For him, it was merely a hand, cut off from the wrist; and he
had performed that executive part! A wiser man would now have been the
lord of it.... So he felt, with his burning wish to protect and cherish
the beloved woman, while saying: 'If we find a speedy bidder for The
Crossways, you will have to thank our railways.'

'You!' said Diana, confident in his ability to do every-thing of the
practical kind.

Her ingenuousness tickled him. He missed her comic touches upon men and
things, but the fever shown by her manner accounted for it.

As soon as he left her, she was writing to the lover who had an hour
previously been hearing her voice; the note of her theme being Party;
and how to serve it, when to sacrifice it to the Country. She wrote,
carolling bars of the Puritani marches; and