ice--unless, perhaps, some friendly ear begins to listen? Do you
think Mr. Mangan--did you say Mangan?--do you think he would come and
dine with us some evening?"

The artless ingenuousness of her speech was almost embarrassing.

"He is a very busy man," he said, doubtfully, "very busy. He has his
gallery work to do, of course; and then I believe he is engaged on some
important philosophical treatise--he has been at it for years, indeed--"

"Oh, he writes books too?" Lady Adela cried. "Then certainly you must
bring him to dinner. Shall I write a note now, Mr. Moore--a Sunday
evening, of course, so that we may secure you as well--"

"I think I would wait a little, Lady Adela," he said, "until I see how
the land lies. He's a most curious fellow, Mangan: difficult to please
and capricious. I fancy he is rather disappointed with himself; he ought
to have done something great, for he knows everything--at least he knows
what is fine in everything, in painting, in poetry, in music; and yet,
with all his sympathy, he seems to be forever grumbling--and mostly at
himself. He is a difficult fellow to deal with--"

"I suppose he eats his dinner like anybody else," said Lady Adela,
somewhat sharply: she was not used to having her invitations scorned.

"Yes, but I think he would prefer to eat it in a village ale-house,"
Lionel said, with a smile, "where he could make 'the violet of a legend
blow, among the chops and steaks.' However, I will take him your book,
Lady Adela; and I have no doubt he will be able to give you some good
advice."

It was late that evening when, in obedience to the summons of a sixpenny
telegram, Maurice Mangan called at the stage-door of the New Theatre and
was passed in. Lionel Moore was on the stage, as any one could tell, for
the resonant baritone voice was ringing clear above the multitudinous
music of the orchestra; but Mangan, not wishing to be in the way, did
not linger in the wings--he made straight for his friend's room, which
he knew. And in the dusk of the long corridor he was fortunate enough to
behold a beautiful apparition, in the person of a young French officer
in the gayest of uniforms, who, apparently to maintain the character he
bore in the piece (it was that of a young prisoner of war liberated on
parole, who played sad havoc with the hearts of the village maidens by
reason of his fascinating ways and pretty broken English), had just
facetiously chucked two of the women dressers unde