summer house?
Lord, rather!"

It was Telford. Hagar wished for the slightest pretext to go up the
unfrequented side path and speak to him, but his mind was too excited to
do the thing naturally without a stout pretext. Besides, though he admired
the man's proportions and his uses from an artistic standpoint, he did not
like him personally, and he said that he never could. He had instinctive
likes and dislikes. What had startled him at the pump-room and had made
him come to the gardens was the conviction that this was the man to play
the part in the scene which, described by Mrs. Detlor, had been arranging
itself in a hundred ways in his brain during the night--the central
figures always the same, the details, light, tone, coloring, expression,
fusing, resolving. Then came another and still more significant thought.
On this he had acted.

When he had got rid of Richmond, who begged that he would teach him how to
arrange a tie as he did--for which an hour was appointed--he determined,
at all hazards, to speak. He had a cigar in his pocket, and though to
smoke in the morning was pain and grief to him, he determined to ask for a
match, and started. He was stopped by Baron, whose thoughts being much
with the little vices of man, anticipated his wishes and offered him a
light. In despair Hagar took it, and asked if he chanced to know who the
stranger was. Baron did know, assuring Hagar that he sat on the
gentleman's right at the same table in his hotel, and was qualified to
introduce him. Before they started he told the artist of the occurrence of
the evening before, and further assured him of the graces of Miss Mildred
Margrave. "A pearl," he said, "not to be reckoned by loads of ivory, nor
jolly bricks of gold, nor caravans of Arab steeds, nor--come and have
dinner with me to-night, and you shall see. There, what do you say?"

Hagar, who loved the man's unique and spontaneous character as only an
artist can love a subject in which he sees royal possibilities, consented
gladly, and dropped a cordial hand on the other's shoulder. The hand was
dragged down and wrenched back and forth with a sturdy clasp, in time to a
roll of round, unctuous laughter. Then Baron took him up hurriedly, and
introduced him to Telford with the words: "You two ought to know each
other. Telford, traveler, officer of the Hudson's Bay company, et cetera;
Hagar, artist, good fellow, et cetera."

Then he drew back and smiled as the two men, not shaki