not learn to love.

Meanwhile, it was his business as the friend and uncle of the two to be
genial and make things go on greased wheels.

So he exerted himself to talk at dinner--their dinner _a trois_--. He
told them all the news that had happened during the week--Was it only a
week--Zara and Tristram both thought!

How there were rumors that in the coming spring there might be a general
election, and that the Radicals were making fresh plots to ruin the
country; but there was to be no autumn session, and, as usual, the
party to which they all had the honor to belong was half asleep.

And then the two men grew deep in a political discussion, so as soon as
Zara had eaten her peach she said she would leave them to their talk,
and say "Good night," as she was tired out.

"Yes, my niece," said her uncle who had risen. And he did what he had
not done since she was a child, he stooped and kissed her white
forehead. "Yes, indeed, you must go and rest. We both want you to do us
justice to-morrow, don't we, Tristram? We must have our special lady
looking her best."

And she smiled a faint smile as she passed from the room.

"By George! my dear boy," the financier went on, "I don't believe I ever
realized what a gorgeously beautiful creature my niece is. She is like
some wonderful exotic blossom--a mass of snow and flame!"

And Tristram said with unconscious cynicism,

"Certainly snow--but where is the flame?"

Francis Markrute looked at him out of the corners of his clever eyes.
She had been icy to him in Paris, then! But his was not the temperament
to interfere. It was only a question of time. After all, a week was not
long to grow accustomed to a perfect stranger.

Then they went back to the library, and smoked for an hour or so and
continued their political chat; and at last Markrute said to his new
nephew-in-law blandly,

"In a year or so, when you and Zara have a son, I will give you, my dear
boy, some papers to read which will interest you as showing the mother's
side of his lineage. It will be a fit balance, as far as actual blood
goes, to your own."

In a year or so, when Zara should have a son!

Of all the aspects of the case, which her pride and disdain had robbed
him of, this, Tristram felt, was perhaps--though it had not before
presented itself to him--the most cruel. He would have no son!

He got up suddenly and threw his unfinished cigar into the grate--that
old habit of his when he was moved--a