ss his
thighs with his left.

"Do sit down, Constance, and we will talk of things we both like to do,
at greater length---- Ah! bother--forgive me--I can't reach it."

"Oh! please don't trouble. It doesn't matter. I can get it quite well
myself," Lady Constance said, quite quickly for once. She drew up the
chair and sat down near him, folding her hands again nervously in her
lap. All the colour had died out of her cheeks. They were as white as
her rounded throat. She kept her eyes fixed on Richard's face, and her
bosom rose and fell, while her words came somewhat gaspingly. Still she
talked on with a touching little effect of determined civility.

"Lady Calmady was very kind in telling me I might sometimes go over to
Whitney," she said. "I should like that. I am afraid papa will miss me.
Of course there will be all the others just the same. But I go out so
much with him. Of course I would not ask to go over very often, because
I know it might be inconvenient for me to have the horses."

"But you will have your own horses," Richard answered. "I wrote to
Chifney to look out for a pair of cobs for you last week--browns--you
said you liked that colour I remember. And I told him they were to be
broken until big guns, going off under their very noses, wouldn't make
them so much as wince."

"Are you buying them just for me?" the girl said.

"Just for you?" Dickie laughed. "Why, who on earth should I buy
anything for but just you, I should like to know?"

"But"--she began.

"But--but"--he echoed, resting his hands on the two arms of his chair,
leaning forward and still laughing, though somewhat shyly. "Don't you
see the whole and sole programme is that you should do all you like,
and have all you like, and--and be happy."--Richard straightened
himself up, still looking full at her, trying to focus both these
quaintly--engaging, far-apart eyes. "Constance, do you never play?" he
asked her suddenly.

"I did practice every morning at home, but lately----"

"Oh! I don't mean that," the young man said. "I mean quite another sort
of playing."

"Games?" Lady Constance inquired. "I am afraid I am rather stupid about
games. I find it so difficult to remember numbers and words, and I
never can make a ball go where I want it to, somehow."

"I was not thinking of games either, exactly," Richard said, smiling.

The girl stared at him in some perplexity. Then spoke again, with the
same little effect of determined civility.