nce had defined, not to say
denounced, him as a consummate and dangerous flirt, but these were
not the most discerning of their sex. Durant described himself more
correctly as a sympathetic, though dispassionate, observer of
womankind. In other words, he was not a vulgar flirt; he flirted
with understanding.

An understanding without flirtation was springing up between him and
Miss Tancred. In this God-forsaken place they were comrades in
boredom and isolation. She had said nothing, but in some impalpable
yet intimate way he knew that she, too, was bored, that the Colonel
bored her. The knowledge lay between them unnamed, untouched by
either of them; they passed it by, she in her shame and he in his
delicacy, with eyes averted from it and from each other. It was as
if the horror had crept out through some invisible, intangible
doorway of confession; unseen, unapproached, it remained their
secret and the source of their mutual pity. Meanwhile she no longer
avoided him; on the contrary, she showed an unmistakable liking for
his society. She would come while he was sketching and sit beside
him for five minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour, remaining
silent, or merely exchanging a few frank words with him before she
went her way. In these matters she was gifted with an unerring tact;
without a hint on Durant's part she seemed to know to a nicety how
far her presence was agreeable or otherwise.

This time he had gone up the hill after dinner, and had found her
sitting in the accustomed place. They had been alone that evening,
for the Colonel was dining intimately with Mrs. Fazakerly. That
lady, with a refined friendliness that did her credit, had refrained
from including Miss Tancred and Durant in the invitation, thereby
insuring them one evening's immunity from whist. Durant could make
no better use of his freedom than by spending it alone out of
doors; it seemed that Miss Tancred had done the same with hers.

She was sitting there on the edge of the mound, clasping her knees
and gazing into the distance. He apologized for his intrusion, and
she waked from her abstraction with a dreamy air, making a visible
effort to take him in and realize him. But, though she said simply
that she was glad he had come, the effect of his coming was to
plunge her into deeper abstraction. They sat for some time without
speaking. Miss Tancred had a prodigious faculty for silence, and
Durant let her have her way, being indeed indifferent