ng to be more sensible than everyday people. And just when
there comes a good chance of putting our views into practice, you draw
back, you make conventional excuses. I don't like that! It makes me
feel doubtful about your sincerity--Be angry, if you like. I feel
inclined to be angry too, and I've the better right!"

Again her panting impulsiveness ended in extinction of voice, again she
was rosily self-conscious, though, this time, not exactly shamefaced;
and again the young man felt a sort of surprise as he gazed at her.

"In any case," he said, standing up and taking a step or two, "an offer
of this kind couldn't be accepted straightaway. All I can say now is
that I'm very grateful to you. No one ever gave me such a proof of
friendship, that's the simple fact. It's uncommonly good of you, Iris--"

"It's not uncommonly good of _you_," she broke in, still seated, and
her arms crossed. "Do as you like. You said disagreeable things, and I
felt hurt, and when I ask you to make amends in a reasonable way--"

"Look here," cried Lashmar, standing before her with his hands in his
pockets, "you know perfectly well--_perfectly well_--that, if I accept
this offer, you'll think the worse of me."

Iris started up.

"It isn't true! I shall think the worse of you if you go down to Lady
Ogram's house, and act and speak as if you were independent. What sort
of face will you have when it comes at last to telling her the truth?"

Dyce seemed to find this a powerful argument. He raised his brows,
moved uneasily, and kept silence.

"I shall _not_ think one bit the worse of you," Iris pursued,
impetuously. "You make me out, after all, to be a silly, ordinary
woman, and it's horribly unjust. If you go away like this, please never
come here again. I mean what I say. Never come to see me again!"

Lashmar seemed to hesitate, looked uncomfortable, then stepped back to
his chair and sat down.

"That's right;" said Iris, with quiet triumph.

And she, too, resumed her chair.

CHAPTER VIII

Under the roof at Rivenoak was an attic which no one ever entered. The
last person who had done so was Sir Quentin Ogram; on a certain day in
eighteen hundred and--something, the baronet locked the door and put
key into his pocket, and during the more than forty years since elapsed
the room had remained shut. It guarded neither treasure nor dire
secret; the hidden contents were merely certain essays in the art of
sculpture, sundry shapes i