essing him, asked: "How is your father?"

"Thank you. Enjoying his usual poor health." He turned again to
Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so
few admirations. But he knew your father and admired him greatly."

Margaret made no reply. She was thinking of the land of Splendours and
Terrors, where the princess sat in chains. Margaret envied her. Over the
hill the true knight was hastening and Margaret knew, as we all know,
what happened then. It is a very pretty story, but it can be equally sad
to a sorrowing girl who has no true knight, or who had one, and who
found that he was neither knightly nor true.

Paliser misconstrued her silence. About her eyes and mouth was an
expression that is displayed by those who have suffered from some long
malady or from some perilous constraint. That also he misconstrued. He
had been told she had washed her hands of Lennox and had washed them
with the soap of indifference, which is the most effective of all. He
was not credulous but he had believed it. The idea that her throat was
choked and her heart a haunt of regret, did not occur to this subtle
young man. He attributed both her silence and her expression to
neuralgia. The latter did not disturb him. But her loveliness did. It
inundated him. The gallery of his memory was hung with fair faces. Her
face exceeded them all.

The dinner proceeded. Presently, Kate Schermerhorn called over at him.
"Who was the damsel I saw you making up to in the Park the other day?"

Paliser turned to her. "I have forgotten."

"I don't wonder. You seemed to have lost your head."

"Probably then because it wasn't you."

"Fiddlesticks! You looked as though you could cut your throat for her.
Didn't you feel that way? I am sure you did."

"You must be thinking of Cantillon. That's the way he looks at you. If
he didn't, he wouldn't have any feeling at all. One might even say he
was quite heartless."

Kate was laughing. In laughing she showed her red mouth and her teeth,
small, white, a trifle uneven, and, though she continued to show them,
her laughter ceased. With her red mouth open, she stared. That mouth
closed, opened again. She was saying something.

Everybody was exclaiming. All were hurriedly getting up.

Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone.

Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending
also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss
Bleecker.

Then