to him. Or was she--was
she not rather devoted to his "interests," to those nebulous attendants
that hover round a man like shadows in the night? How would it be in
Algiers when they were quite alone together?

He sighed, looked once more at the label, and went upstairs.

He found Mrs. Mansfield there alone, reading beside the fire.

She had not been very well, and her face looked thinner than usual, her
eyes more intense and burning. She was dressed in white.

As Claude came in she laid down her book and turned to him. He thought
she looked very sad.

"Charmian still out, Madre?" he asked.

"Yes. Dressmakers hold hands with eternity, I think."

"Tailors don't, thank Heaven!"

He sat down on the other side of the fire, and they were both silent for
a moment.

"You're coming to see us in spring?" Claude said, lifting his head.

Sadness seemed to flow from Mrs. Mansfield to him, to be enveloping him.
He disliked, almost feared, silence just then.

"If you want me."

"If!"

"I'm not quite sure that you will."

Their eyes met. Claude looked away. Did he really wish Madre to come out
into that life? Had she pierced down to a reluctance in him of which
till that moment he had scarcely been aware?

"We shall see," she said, more lightly. "Susan Fleet is going out, I
know, after Christmas, when Adelaide Shiffney goes off to India."

"Yes, she has promised Charmian to come. And Lake will visit us too."

"Naturally. Will you see him in Paris on your way through?"

"Oh, yes! What an enthusiast he is!"

Claude sighed.

"I shall miss you, Madre," he said, somberly almost. "I am so accustomed
to be within reach of you."

"I hope you will miss me a little. But the man who never leans heavily
never falls when the small human supports we all use now and then are
withdrawn. You love me, I know. But you don't need me."

"Then do you think I never lean heavily?"

"Do you?"

He moved rather uneasily.

"I--I don't know that it is natural to me to lean. Still--still we
sometimes do things, get into the habit of doing things, which are not
natural to us."

"That's a mistake, I think, unless we do them from a fine motive, from
unselfishness, for instance, from the motive of honor, or to strengthen
our wills drastically. But I believe we have been provided with a means
of knowing how far we ought to pursue a course not wholly natural to
us."

"What means?"

"If the at first apparently unnatural thing soon s