ference to a witness who had
seen its evolution from the moods of the first few days of their reunion
in Weimar. To General Triscoe, however, it looked like an understanding
which had been made without reference to his wishes, and had not been
directly brought to his knowledge.

"Agatha," he said, after due note of a gay contest between her and
Burnamy over the pleasure and privilege of ordering his supper sent to
his room when he had gone back to it from his first afternoon in the open
air, "how long is that young man going to stay in Weimar?"

"Why, I don't know!" she answered, startled from her work of beating the
sofa pillows into shape, and pausing with one of them in her hand. "I
never asked him." She looked down candidly into his face where he sat in
an easy-chair waiting for her arrangement of the sofa. "What makes you
ask?"

He answered with another question. "Does he know that we had thought of
staying here?"

"Why, we've always talked of that, haven't we? Yes, he knows it. Didn't
you want him to know it, papa? You ought to have begun on the ship, then.
Of course I've asked him what sort of place it was. I'm sorry if you
didn't want me to."

"Have I said that? It's perfectly easy to push on to Paris. Unless--"

"Unless what?" Agatha dropped the pillow, and listened respectfully. But
in spite of her filial attitude she could not keep her youth and strength
and courage from quelling the forces of the elderly man.

He said querulously, "I don't see why you take that tone with me. You
certainly know what I mean. But if you don't care to deal openly with me,
I won't ask you." He dropped his eyes from her face, and at the same time
a deep blush began to tinge it, growing up from her neck to her forehead.
"You must know--you're not a child," he continued, still with averted
eyes, "that this sort of thing can't go on... It must be something else,
or it mustn't be anything at all. I don't ask you for your confidence,
and you know that I've never sought to control you."

This was not the least true, but Agatha answered, either absently or
provisionally, "No."

"And I don't seek to do so now. If you have nothing that you wish to tell
me--"

He waited, and after what seemed a long time, she asked as if she had not
heard him, "Will you lie down a little before your supper, papa?"

"I will lie down when I feel like it," he answered. "Send August with the
supper; he can look after me."

His resentful tone, eve