resented myself, you were sitting very
close to Miss Evers and talking very earnestly. Your head was bent
toward her--it was very lover-like. Decidedly, Miss Evers is the
object!"

For a single instant Gordon Wright hesitated, and then--"I hope I have
n't seemed rude to Miss Vivian!" he exclaimed.

Bernard broke into a light laugh. "My dear Gordon, you are very much in
love!" he remarked, as they arrived at their hotel.

CHAPTER V

Life at Baden-Baden proved a very sociable affair, and Bernard
Longueville perceived that he should not lack opportunity for the
exercise of those gifts of intelligence to which Gordon Wright had
appealed. The two friends took long walks through the woods and over the
mountains, and they mingled with human life in the crowded precincts of
the Conversation-house. They engaged in a ramble on the morning after
Bernard's arrival, and wandered far away, over hill and dale. The
Baden forests are superb, and the composition of the landscape is most
effective. There is always a bosky dell in the foreground, and a
purple crag embellished with a ruined tower at a proper angle. A little
timber-and-plaster village peeps out from a tangle of plum-trees, and a
way-side tavern, in comfortable recurrence, solicits concessions to the
national custom of frequent refreshment. Gordon Wright, who was a dogged
pedestrian, always enjoyed doing his ten miles, and Longueville, who was
an incorrigible stroller, felt a keen relish for the picturesqueness
of the country. But it was not, on this occasion, of the charms of the
landscape or the pleasures of locomotion that they chiefly discoursed.
Their talk took a more closely personal turn. It was a year since they
had met, and there were many questions to ask and answer, many arrears
of gossip to make up. As they stretched themselves on the grass on a
sun-warmed hill-side, beneath a great German oak whose arms were quiet
in the blue summer air, there was a lively exchange of impressions,
opinions, speculations, anecdotes. Gordon Wright was surely an excellent
friend. He took an interest in you. He asked no idle questions and made
no vague professions; but he entered into your situation, he examined
it in detail, and what he learned he never forgot. Months afterwards,
he asked you about things which you yourself had forgotten. He was not a
man of whom it would be generally said that he had the gift of
sympathy; but he gave his attention to a friend's circum