continue eating and sitting in
arm-chairs. You don't like what I say, do you?" with easy impudence.
"Well, I said it to sting you--if there's any sensation left under your
hide. And I'll say something else: if you'd care for somebody beside
yourself for a change and give the overworked Ego a vacation, you'd get
along with your pretty neighbour yonder. Oh, yes, you would; she was
quite inclined to like you before you began to turn, physically, into a
stall-fed prize winner. You're only thirty-seven or eight; you've a
reasonable chance yet to exchange obesity for perspicacity before it
smothers what intellect remains. And if you're anything except what
you're beginning to resemble you'll stop sharp, behave yourself, go to
see your neighbour, and"--with a shrug--"marry her. Marriage--as easy a
way out of trouble as it is in."

He swung carelessly on his heel, supple, erect, graceful as always.

"But," he threw back over his shoulder, "you'd better acquire the
rudiments of a figure before you go a-courting Alida Ascott." And left
Portlaw sitting petrified in his wadded chair.

Malcourt strolled on, a humorously malicious smile hovering near his
eyes, but his face grew serious as he glanced up at Hamil's window. He
had not seen Hamil during his illness or his convalescence--had made no
attempt to, evading lightly the casual suggestions of Portlaw that he
and his young wife pay Hamil a visit; nor did he appear to take anything
more than a politely perfunctory interest in the sick man's progress;
yet Constance Palliser had often seen him pacing the lawn under Hamil's
window long after midnight during those desperate hours when the
life-flame scarcely flickered--those ominous moments when so many souls
go out to meet the impending dawn.

But now, in the later stages of Hamil's rapid convalescence which is
characteristic of a healthy recovery from that unpleasant malady,
Malcourt avoided the cottage, even ceased to inquire; and Hamil had
never asked to see him, although, for appearance' sake, he knew that he
must do so very soon.

Wayward and Constance Palliser were visiting Mrs. Ascott at Pride's
Fall; young Mrs. Malcourt had been there for a few days, but was
returning to prepare for the series of house-parties arranged by Portlaw
who had included Cecile Cardross and Philip Gatewood in the first relay.

As for Malcourt there was no counting on him; he was likely to remain
for several days at any of the five distant gate