as the match was scratched. "You're nervous, Billie," he said.

Hawker straightened in his chair. "No, I'm not."

"I saw your fingers tremble when you lit that match."

"Oh, you lie!"

Hollanden mused again. "He's popular with women, too," he said
ultimately; "and often a woman will like a man and hunt his scalp just
because she knows other women like him and want his scalp."

"Yes, but not----"

"Hold on! You were going to say that she was not like other women,
weren't you?"

"Not exactly that, but----"

"Well, we will have all that understood."

After a period of silence Hawker said, "I must be going."

As the painter walked toward the door Hollanden cried to him: "Heavens!
Of all pictures of a weary pilgrim!" His voice was very compassionate.

Hawker wheeled, and an oath spun through the smoke clouds.

CHAPTER X.

"Where's Mr. Hawker this morning?" asked the younger Miss Worcester. "I
thought he was coming up to play tennis?"

"I don't know. Confound him! I don't see why he didn't come," said
Hollanden, looking across the shining valley. He frowned questioningly
at the landscape. "I wonder where in the mischief he is?"

The Worcester girls began also to stare at the great gleaming stretch of
green and gold. "Didn't he tell you he was coming?" they demanded.

"He didn't say a word about it," answered Hollanden. "I supposed, of
course, he was coming. We will have to postpone the _melee_."

Later he met Miss Fanhall. "You look as if you were going for a walk?"

"I am," she said, swinging her parasol. "To meet the stage. Have you
seen Mr. Hawker to-day?"

"No," he said. "He is not coming up this morning. He is in a great fret
about that field of stubble, and I suppose he is down there sketching
the life out of it. These artists--they take such a fiendish interest in
their work. I dare say we won't see much of him until he has finished
it. Where did you say you were going to walk?"

"To meet the stage."

"Oh, well, I won't have to play tennis for an hour, and if you
insist----"

"Of course."

As they strolled slowly in the shade of the trees Hollanden began,
"Isn't that Hawker an ill-bred old thing?"

"No, he is not." Then after a time she said, "Why?"

"Oh, he gets so absorbed in a beastly smudge of paint that I really
suppose he cares nothing for anything else in the world. Men who are
really artists--I don't believe they are capable of deep human
affections. So much of them is oc