s port
which made him, in spite of the correct modernity of his dress, suggest
some seventeenth-century portrait.

"Forgive my passing you," he said, at length; "but I'm starving."

"So am I," she returned, hardly aware of what she was saying. Some
strange, almost hypnotic attraction seemed to rivet her whole attention
on the mere phenomenon of this man.

"By Jove! Aren't they feeding the multitude down there?" he asked,
nodding in the direction of the supper-room.

"Of course," she answered, with the simple gravity of a child, her blue
eyes still fixed upon him. "But I can't ask for supper for myself, can
I?"

Her need was distinctly material; yet the young man confronting her
white grace, the strange look in her blue eyes, had a dreamlike feeling,
almost as though he had met a dryad or an Undine between two of the
prosaic, substantial doors of Ipswich House. And as in a dream the most
extraordinary things seem familiar and expected, so the apparition of
the Undine and her confidence in him seemed familiar, in fact just what
he had been expecting during those hours of fog off the Goodwins, when
the sirens, wild voices gathering up from all the seas of the world, had
been screaming to each other across the hidden waters. That same inner
concentration upon the mere phenomenon of a presence, an existence,
which had given the childlike note to Mildred's speech, froze a
compliment upon his lips; and they stood silent, eying each other
gravely. A junior footman appeared, carrying a bottle of champagne in a
bucket, and the young man addressed him in a vague, distracted tone,
very unlike his usual manner.

"Look here, Arthur, here's a lady who can't get any supper."

The footman went quite pink at this personal reproach. He happened to
have heard some one surmise, on seeing Mildred roaming about alone, that
she was a newspaper woman.

"Please sir," he replied, "I don't know how it's happened, for her
Ladyship told Mr. Mackintosh to be sure and see as the newspaper ladies
and gentlemen were well looked after, and he thought as they'd all had
supper."

It seemed incredible that Mildred should not have heard this reply,
uttered so close to her; but though it fell upon her ears it did not
penetrate to her mind.

"Bring up supper for two, Arthur," said Goring, in his usual decisive
tone. "That'll do, won't it?" he added, and turned to Mildred, ushering
her into the room. "You'll have supper with me, I hope? My name's