t make it out. He is sometimes quite brutal to
her when she is more inconsequent than usual. I often wonder she goes on
living with him.'

Catherine made some indignant comment.

'Yes,' said Robert, musing. 'Yes, it is bad.'

But Catherine thought his tone might have been more unqualified, and
marvelled again at the curious lenity of judgment he had always shown
of late toward Mr. Wendover. And all his judgments of himself and others
were generally so quick, so uncompromising!

'On the second occasion we had Freake and Dashwood,' naming two
well-known English antiquarians. 'Very learned, very jealous, and very
snuffy; altogether "too genuine," as poor mother used to say of those
old chairs we got for the dining-room. But afterward when we were all
smoking in the library, the Squire came out of his shell and talked. I
never heard him more brilliant!'

He paused a moment, his bright eyes looking far away from her, as though
fixed on the scene he was describing.

'Such a mind!' he said at last with a long breath, 'such a memory!
Catherine, my book has been making great strides since you left. With
Mr. Wendover to go to, all the problems are simplified. One is saved all
false starts, all beating about the bush. What a piece of luck it was
that put one down beside such a guide, such a living storehouse of
knowledge!'

He spoke in a glow of energy and enthusiasm. Catherine sat looking at
him wistfully, her gray eyes crossed by many varying shades of memory
and feeling.

At last his look met hers, and the animation of it softened at once,
grew gentle.

'Do you think I am making knowledge too much of a god just now, Madonna
mine?' he said, throwing himself down beside her. 'I have been full
of qualms myself. The Squire excites one so, makes one feel as though
intellect--accumulation--were the whole of life. But I struggle against
it--I do. I go on, for instance, trying to make the Squire do his social
duties--behave like "a human."'

Catherine could not help smiling at his tone.

'Well?' she inquired.

He shook his head ruefully.

'The Squire is a tough customer--most men of sixty-seven with strong
wills are, I suppose. At any rate, he is like one of the Thurston
trout--sees through all my manoeuvres. But one piece of news will
astonish you, Catherine!' And he sprang up to deliver it with effect.
'Henslowe is dismissed.'

'Henslowe dismissed!' Catherine sat properly amazed, while Robert told
the story.

Th