trophe that'll be to us."

"Poor Dolly; I never knew of that. I always thought the place was
yours. You always said so."

"Yes; why not? With every right. It is ours--till he repurchases.
You see he's beginning to nurse ambition now. I suppose there's no
doubt that he'll come up to the top of the ladder. I always knew he'd
make a splendid barrister if he once caught hold of the ambition.
Now, of course, he'll find that the possession of Apsley's of value
to him. He'll have to entertain. A Bohemian can't entertain any one
but a Bohemian. Then, I suppose, he'll marry--get a house in Town
like we have--and use Apsley, as we've done, for his friends."

"But, my dear Dolly--what on earth will you do?"

"Do?" Mrs. Durlacher rose with a sigh. "Well--there's prayer and
fasting; but there'll be considerably more fasting than prayer, I
should imagine. I assure you, I do pray that he doesn't make a fool
of himself and marry some woman out of the bottomless pit of Bohemia."

"Well, I should think so. It 'ud be an awful pity, wouldn't it?"

"A considerable pity--yes. Here he is." She turned quickly to her
friend, but her voice was cleverly pitched on a casual note. "Don't
say anything to him about Apsley," she remarked. "He never admits
to possession of it--that's one of his peculiarities. I don't suppose
he will until he planks down his five thousand pounds. He has what
he calls a legal sense of justice. Makes sure of a statement before
he delivers it. You'll never catch him out. That's the Scotch blood
on the mater's side of the family. I should think it's saved him out
of many a difficulty."

Traill strode into the drawing-room as unconscious of the fate that
Mrs. Durlacher had so deftly woven for him as is the unwieldy gull
that, tumbling down the wind, strikes into the meshes of the fowler's
net and finds itself enchained within the web. Coralie, herself, set
to the task of winning him, was as unconscious of the subtly
diaphonous mechanism of the trap as he. Yet she was versed well enough
in human nature in her way. Innocence could not be laid at her door
with the hope of finding it again. But it needs the long training
of social strategy for any one to realize the cunning knowledge that
things are not obtained in this world by asking for them, but by the
hidden method of suggestion. That Mrs. Durlacher was in search of
a suitable sister-in-law was obvious to the most untrained eye. It
was no capable deduction on Corali