ow
such a thing could have happened, his own vague happy thoughts of her
stirred wistfully behind the new knowledge. And he could not dismiss her
altogether from the throne he had designed for her to occupy. There must
be some explanation; if only he had not been such an absolute stranger
perhaps she would have told him a little more, have given him a chance
to understand.

"Well," asked Mabel, "is she nice, Dick, did you like her?" Her eyes
were quick to notice the new shadow of trouble on his face.

"Very nice, I think," he answered, hoping his voice sounded as
indifferent as he meant it to, "but I really did not see much of her and
she is going back to London almost at once." He went past her on into
the dining-room. "Is lunch nearly ready," he asked, "I have got to catch
that 2.5, you know."

"I'll see about it," Mabel said, "Mother is having hers upstairs."

She turned away to comply, but all the time she was hurrying up the
maidservant, and later, while she and Dick sat opposite each other,
rather silent, through lunch, her eyes and mind were busy trying to read
the secret of Dick's manner. The girl had impressed him strongly, that
was evident, but why should she have occasioned this gloom in Dick who
so very rarely allowed anything or anybody to ruffle his cheery good
humour?

He rode off without letting her glean any explanation, and Mabel
wandered into the drawing-room to get it ready for Mrs. Grant's
descent. Had Dick really fallen in love? She remembered once before when
he had been about eighteen or nineteen, how there had been a girl whom
he had rather shyly confessed himself enamoured of. But since the damsel
had been quite five years his senior the romance, to Mabel's relief, had
faded away. Yet if Dick were ever really to fall in love it would be a
deep and unshakable tie; he would be as his father had been, all
faithful to the one woman in his life.

It was remembering her father that suddenly brought Mabel's thoughts
back to her mother whose absorbing personality had stood so like a giant
shadow across all their lives. Would Dick's love be strong enough to
fight against his sense of duty and mother's selfishness, for most
certainly mother would not help him to achieve his desire unless it ran
along the same lines as her own. And if mother prevailed what would life
mean for Dick? The same dry empty dreariness that her own days
contained, the restless hopes that died too hard, the unsatisfied, cru