t was not the big house-party where he would have been a fish out
of water--even though in no sense a fish landed--that he missed; he
missed Helen; and he wouldn't think of going to see pictures without
her. It was, therefore, pleasant to read Miss Buchanan's hospitable
suggestion that he should drop in that afternoon for a cup of tea and to
keep an old woman company. He was very glad indeed to keep Miss Buchanan
company. She interested him greatly; he had not yet in the least made
out what was her object in life, whether she had gained or missed it,
and whether, indeed, she had ever had one to gain or miss. People who
went thus unpiloted through life filled him with wonder and conjecture.

He found Miss Buchanan as he had found her on the occasion of his first
visit to the little house in Belgravia. Her acute and rugged face showed
not much greater softening for this now wonted guest--showed, rather, a
greater acuteness; but any one who knew Miss Buchanan would know from
its expression that she liked Franklin Kane. 'Well,' she said, as he
drew his chair to the opposite side of the tea-table--very cosy
it was, the fire shining upon them, and the canaries trilling
intermittently--'Well, here we are, abandoned. We'll make the best of
it, won't we?'

Franklin said that under the circumstances he couldn't feel at all
abandoned. 'Nor do I,' said Miss Buchanan, filling the tea-pot. 'You and
I get on very well together, I consider.' Franklin thought so too.

'I hope we may go on with it,' said Miss Buchanan, leaning back in her
chair while the tea drew. 'I hope we are going to keep you over here.
You've given up any definite idea of going back, I suppose.'

Franklin was startled by this confident assurance. His definite idea in
coming over had been, of course, to go back at the end of the autumn,
unless, indeed, a certain cherished hope were fulfilled, in which case
Althea should have decided on any movements. He had hardly, till this
moment, contemplated his own intentions, and now that he did so he found
that he had been guided by none that were definable. It was not because
he had suddenly grown rich and, in his funny way, the fashion, that he
thus stayed on in London, working hard, it is true, and allowing no new
developments to interfere with his work, yet making no plans and setting
no goal before himself. To live as he had been living for the past
weeks was, indeed, in a sense, to drift. There was nothing Franklin
di