sterfield was very sorry that the young foreigner had
come at this time, but he had been invited the winter before; the time
had been appointed; and the visit had to be endured.

When the rain had ceased, and Dick was about to take his leave, his
hostess declared she would not let him walk back through the mud.

"You shall have a horse," she said, "and that will insure an early visit
from you, for, of course, you will not trust the animal to other hands
than your own. I would ask you to stay, but that would not be treating
the captain kindly."

As Dick was mounting Mr. Du Brant was standing at the front door, a
smile on his swarthy countenance. This smile said as plainly as words
could have done so that it was very amusing to this foreign young man to
see a person with rolled-up trousers and a straw hat mount upon a horse.
Claude Locker, whose soul had been chafing all the afternoon under his
banishment from the society of the angel of his life, was also at the
front door, and saw the contemptuous smile. Instantly a new and powerful
emotion swept over his being in the shape of a strong feeling of
fellowship for Lancaster. It made his soul boil with indignation to see
the sneer which the Austrian directed toward the young man, a thoroughly
fine young man, who, by said foreigner's monkeyful impudence, and
another's mistaken favor, had been made a brother-in-misfortune of
himself, Claude Locker.

"I will make common cause with him against the enemy," thought Locker.
"If I should fail to get her I will help him to." And although Dick's
brown socks were plainly visible as he cantered away, Mr. Locker looked
after him as a gallant and honored brother-in-arms.

That evening Claude Locker fought for himself and his comrade. He
persisted in talking French with Mr. Du Brant; and his remarkable
management of that language, in which ignorance and a subtle facility in
intentional misapprehension were so adroitly blended that it was
impossible to tell one from the other, amused Olive, and so provoked the
Austrian that at last he turned away and began to talk American
politics with Mr. Fox, which so elated the poet that the ladies of the
party passed a merry evening.

"Would you like me to take him out rowing to-morrow?" asked Claude apart
to his hostess.

"With you at the oars?" she asked.

"Of course," said Locker.

"I am amazed," said she, "that you should suspect me of such
cold-blooded cruelty."

"You know you don't