invited to
the wedding, and were consequently now in the position of spectators at
a play. The mere detail of this American way of living, with unwalled
properties merging into one another, and doors and windows flung wide to
every passing glance, gave him an odd sense of conducting his affairs in
the market-place or on the stage. If he did not object to it, it was
because of the incitement to keep up to the level of his best which he
always drew from the knowledge that other people's eyes were upon him.

He felt this stimulus when Olivia came out to the Corinthian portico,
seating herself in a wicker chair, with an obvious invitation to him to
join her. "Drusilla Fane has been telling me about your--your friend."

She knew he meant the last two words to be provocative. She knew it by
slight signs of nervousness in his way of standing before her, one foot
on the grass and the other on the first step of the portico. He betrayed
himself, too, in an unsuccessful attempt to make his intonation casual,
as well as by puffing at his cigar without noticing that it had gone
out. An instant's reflection decided her to accept his challenge. As the
subject had to be met, the sooner it came up the better.

She looked at him mildly. "What did she say about him?"

"Only that he was the man who put up the money."

"Yes; he was."

"Why didn't you tell me that this morning?"

"I suppose because there was so much else to say. We should have come
round to it in time. I did tell you everything but his name."

"And the circumstances."

"How do you mean--the circumstances?"

"I got the impression from you this morning that it was some millionaire
Johnny who'd come to your father's aid by advancing the sum in the
ordinary way of business. I didn't understand that it was a
comparatively poor chap who was cleaning himself out to come to yours."

In wording his phrase he purposely went beyond the warrant, in order to
rouse her to denial, or perhaps to indignation. But she said only:

"Did Drusilla say it was to come to my aid?"

"She didn't say it--exactly. I gathered that it was what she thought."

She astonished him by saying, simply: "I think so, too."

"Extraordinary! Do you mean to say he dropped out of a clear sky?"

"I must answer that by both a yes and a no. He did drop out of a clear
sky just lately; but I'd known him before."

"Ah!" His tone was that of a cross-examiner dragging the truth from an
unwilling witness. H