yes! old Barking
is very kind," he went on, with a change of tone. "Only I wish Lady
Louisa would warn him he need not trouble himself to be amusing. He
came and sat by me, towards the end of the evening, and told me the
most inane stories in that inflated manner of his. Verily, they were
ancient as the hills, and a weariness to the spirit. But that
good-looking, young fellow, Decies, swallowed them all down with the
devoutest attention and laughed aloud in all that he conceived to be
the right places."

A pause came in Richard's flow of words. He moved again restlessly and
clasped his hands under his head. Katherine had seldom seen him thus
excited and feverish. A sense of alarm grew on her, lest her heroic
remedy was, after all, not working a wholly satisfactory cure. For
there was a violence in his utterance, and in his face, a certain
recklessness of speech and of demeanour, very agitating to her.

"Oh, every one's kind, awfully kind," he repeated, looking away at the
sucking blind again, "and I'm awfully grateful to them, but---- Oh! I
tell you, that woman's voice has got me and made me drunk, made me mad
drunk. I almost wish I had never heard her. I think I won't go to the
opera again. Emotion that finds no outlet in action only demoralises
one and breaks up one's philosophy, and she makes me know all that
might be, and is not, and never, never can be. Good God! what a
glorious, what an amazing, business I could have made of life if----"
He slipped a little on the pillows, had to unclasp his hands hastily
and press them down on either side him, to keep his body fairly upright
in the bed. His features contracted with a spasm of anger. "If I had
only had the average chance," he added harshly. "If I had only started
with the normal equipment."

And, as she listened, the old anguish, lately lulled to rest in
Katherine's heart, arose and cried aloud. But she sought resolutely to
stifle its crying, strong in faith and hope.

"I know, my dearest, I know," she said pleadingly. "And yet, since we
have been here, I have thought perhaps we had a little underrated both
your happy gift of pleasing and the readiness of others to be pleased.
It seems to me, Dickie, all doors open if you stretch out your hand.
Well, my dear, I would have you go forward fearlessly. I would have you
more ambitious, more self-confident. I see and deplore my own cowardly
mistake. Instead of hiding you away at home, and keeping you to myself,
I