'What _have_ you been doing, Hugh?' his sister asked him, half dismayed,
half provoked.

Flaxman shrugged his shoulders and vowed he had been doing nothing. But,
in truth, he knew very well that the day before he had overstepped the
line. There had been a little scene between them, a quick passage
of speech, a rash look and gesture on his part, which had been quite
unpremeditated, but which had nevertheless transformed their relation.
Rose had flushed up, and said a few incoherent words, which he had
understood to be words of reproach, had left Lady Helen's as quickly as
possible, and next morning his Greenlaws party had fallen through.

'Check, certainly,' said Flaxman to himself ruefully, as he pondered
these circumstances, 'not mate, I hope, if one can but find out how not
to be a fool in future.'

And over his solitary fire he meditated far into the night.

Next day, at half-past seven in the evening, he entered Lady Charlotte's
drawing-room, gayer, brisker, more alert than ever.

Rose started visibly at the sight of him, and shot a quick glance at the
unblushing Lady Charlotte.

'I thought you were at Greenlaws,' she could not help saying to him, and
she coldly offered him her hand. Why had Lady Charlotte never told her
he was to escort them? Her irritation arose anew.

'What can one do,' he said lightly, 'if Elsmere will fix such a
performance for Easter Eve? My party was at its last gasp too; it only
wanted a telegram to Helen to give it its _coup de grace_.'

Rose flushed up, but he turned on his heel at once, and began to banter
his aunt on the housekeeper's bonnet and veil in which she had a little
too obviously disguised herself.

And certainly, in the drive to the East End, Rose had no reason to
complain of importunity on his part. Most of the way he was deep in talk
with Lady Charlotte as to a certain loan exhibition in the East End,
to which he and a good many of his friends were sending pictures;
apparently his time and thoughts were entirely occupied with it. Rose,
leaning back silent in her corner, was presently seized with a little
shock of surprise that there should be so many interests and relations
in his life of which she knew nothing. He was talking now as the man
of possessions and influence. She saw a glimpse of him as he was in his
public aspect, and the kindness, the disinterestedness, the quiet sense,
and the humor of his talk insensibly affected her as she sat listening.
The menta