y; he had gained the
merchant's good opinion to such an extent that the latter, in defiance
of his wife's cautions, had taken the unusual step of proposing that
the young actor should give up the stage and occupy a recently vacated
desk in Mr. Featherstone's own palatial City offices. Even if his
stage ambition had not cooled long since, Caffyn was not the man to
neglect such a chance as this; he accepted gratefully, and already the
merchant saw his selection, unlikely as it had seemed at first,
beginning to be justified by his _protege's_ clear head and command of
languages, while Gilda's satisfaction at the change was at least equal
to her father's. And so, whether Harold was softened by his own
prosperity, and whether other hopes or distractions came between him
and his former passion for revenge, he remained impassive throughout
all the preparations for a marriage which he could have prevented had
he chosen. At Triberg the thought that Mark (who had, as he
considered, been the chief means of ruining his hopes of Mabel) was to
be his successful rival had for an instant revived the old spirit; but
now he could face the fact with positive contentment, and his feeling
towards Mark was rather one of contemptuous amusement than of any
actual hostility.

Mark's introduction of Mabel to his family had not been altogether a
success; he regretted that he had carelessly forgotten to prepare them
for his visit as soon as he pulled the bell-handle by the gate, and
caught a glimpse of scared faces at one or two of the windows,
followed by sounds from within of wild scurry and confusion--'like a
lot of confounded rabbits!' he thought to himself in disgust. Then
they had been kept waiting in a chilly little drawing-room, containing
an assortment of atrocities in glass, china, worsted, and wax, until
Mark moved restlessly about in his nervous irritation, and Mabel felt
her heart sink in spite of her love; she had not expected to find
Mark's people in luxurious surroundings, but she was unprepared for
anything quite so hideous as that room. When Mrs. Ashburn, who had
felt that this was an occasion for some attention to toilette, made
her appearance, it was hardly a reassuring one: she was not exactly
vulgar perhaps, but she was hard, Mabel thought, narrow and ungenial;
but the fact was that the consciousness of having been taken unawares
robbed her welcome of any cordiality which it might otherwise have
possessed. She inferred from