iercely. He was the man whom she had
deliberately believed to be guilty of her father's death, the man whom
she had set herself to entrap. She brushed all those other thoughts away
and banished firmly that dangerous kindness of manner into which she had
been drifting.

And he, on his part, felt a glow of keen pleasure When he realised how
the events of the day had gone in his favour. If not yet of her world,
he knew now that his becoming so would be hereafter purely a matter of
time. He looked up through the green leaves at the blue sky, bedappled
with white, fleecy clouds, and wondered whether she guessed that his
appearance here, his ownership of Iris, the studious care with which he
had placed himself in the hands of a Seville Row tailor were all for her
sake. It was true that she had condescended to Bohemianism, that he had
first met her as a journalist, working for her living in a plain serge
suit and a straw hat. But he felt sure that this had been to a certain
extent a whim with her. He stole a sidelong glance at her--she was
the personification of daintiness from the black patent shoes showing
beneath the flouncing of her skirt, to the white hat with its clusters
of roses. Her foulard gown was as simple as genius could make it, and
she wore no ornaments, save a fine clasp to her waistband of dull gold,
quaintly fashioned, and the fine gold chain around her neck, from which
hung her racing-glasses. She was to him the very type of everything
aristocratic. It might be, as she had told him, that she chose to work
for her living, but he knew as though by inspiration that her people and
connections were of that world to which he could never belong, save
on sufferance. He meant to belong to it, for her sake--to win her! He
admitted the presumption, but then it would be presumption of any man to
lift his eyes to her. He estimated his chances with common sense; he
was not a man disposed to undervalue himself. He knew the power of his
wealth and his advantage over the crowd of young men who were her equals
by birth. For he had met some of them, had inquired into their lives,
listened to their jargon, and had come in a faint sort of way to
understand them. It had been an encouragement to him. After all it was
only serious work, life lived out face to face with the great realities
of existence which could make a man. In a dim way he realised that there
were few in her own class likely to satisfy Ernestine. He even dared to