heart went out strangely to the dear little lad! He
wondered if it would be too much to ask Mary and Roger to give him the
boy altogether? Then he put the thought from him, judging it savoured
of the selfishness, the exclusiveness, and egoism, with which he had
sworn to part company forever.

He stretched his hand out over the arm of the chair, craving for some
creature, warm, sentient, dumbly sympathetic, to lay hold of.--He
remembered there used to be a man down near Alton, a hard-riding
farmer, who bred bull-dogs--white ones with black points, like Camp and
Camp's forefathers. He would tell Chifney to go down there and bespeak
the two best of the next litter of puppies.--Yes--he wanted a dog
again. It was foolish perhaps, but after all one did want something,
and, since other things were denied, a dog must do--and he wanted one
badly.--Yet the day had been a success on the whole. He had been true
to his code. Only--and Richard shrugged his shoulders rather
wearily--it had got to be begun all over again to-morrow, and next day,
and next--an endless perspective of to-morrows. And the poor flesh,
with its many demands, its delicious and iniquitous passions, its
enchantments, its revelations, its adorable languors, its drunken
heats, must it have nothing, nothing at all? Must that whole side of
things be ruled out forever?--He had no more desire for mistresses, God
forbid--Helen, somehow, had cleansed him of all possibility of that.
And he would never ask any woman to marry him. The sacrifice on her
part would be too great.--He thought of little Lady Constance.--Simply,
it was not right.--So, practically, the emotional joys of life were
reduced to this--they must consist solely in giving--giving--giving--of
time, sympathy, thought and money! A far from ignoble programme no
doubt, but a rather austere one for a man of liberal tastes, of varied
experience, and of barely thirty.--And he was as strong as a bull now.
He knew that. He might live to be ninety.--Yes, he thought he would ask
for little Dick Ormiston. The boy would be an amusement and interest
him.--And then suddenly the vision of Honoria St. Quentin, in her red
and black-braided gown, with that air of something ruffling and
soldierly about it, whipping the small Dick up in her strong arms,
throwing him across her shoulder and bearing him off bodily, and of
Honoria later, her sensitive face all alight, as she discoursed of the
ultimate aim and purpose of life and