and there was a sort of charm
about the old castle where they lived, always in difficulties, yet
keeping open house, and managing, in some mysterious way, to have the
best of everything. There are people like that, you know--people who,
without possessing a penny, manage to acquire pounds' worth of
everything. It's an art, and old Squire Payton had it at his
finger-tips."

Outside the rain still fell. Inside the room everything was very quiet.

"Well, the end of it was that I fell in love with Eva Payton. She was
just eighteen--a bewitching age, I used to think, and as pretty as a
picture. Golden curls that were generally tied up with a blue ribbon,
big Irish eyes, put in, as they say, with a smutty finger, a little
mouth all soft curves, the tiniest, whitest teeth--oh, there's no
denying she was a beauty; and she made my heart beat faster every time
she looked at me."

He had spoken rather dreamily, and Toni sat still, fascinated by this
authentic peep into another's life; but with a sudden rather harsh
laugh, Herrick resumed his story in a different tone.

"Well, we were married. In those days I had a little money--not a great
deal, but I managed to make a fair income by painting. I never told you
I painted, did I? Well, I did--portraits chiefly; and made quite a
decent bit of money."

Toni, who knew nothing of art and artists, never suspected that she was
in the company of one of the best-known portrait-painters of the day;
and Herrick was well content to keep her in ignorance.

"So we were married and came back to London. We had a house in
Kensington--quite an unfashionable locality, but one of the big,
old-fashioned houses you find there, with a large garden which was worth
a fortune, to my way of thinking. But I soon found that my wife wasn't
satisfied to live quietly, out of the world, as it were. She hankered
after a house in St. John's Wood, among the 'other artists' or in
Hampstead among the rich people. She didn't want to be stuck down among
frumps and dowds, she said. West Kensington was all very well for women
who were churchy, given up to good works, but she wanted to be in a
lively, social, bridge-playing set; and she moped and pined so in our
quiet life that I gave in and we moved to a much smarter locality."

Toni, her eyes fixed on his face, said nothing when he paused; and after
a minute he resumed his narrative.

"Well, from the first it was an unlucky move--for me. The house was too
big,