"Delightful!" Frank repeated. "Is he? I wonder. Shrewd, cool-headed, cruel, I think—subtle as well."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Ravenel interrupted, with a smile which might not have been so mirthful had she seen at that moment the man of whom she spoke.

Near the north gate McDermott had brought his horse suddenly to a walk. There was no longer gayety in his manner or his face. The merry light had left his eyes, and in its place shone a gleam, steady and cold, as only the eye of the intellectual Irish can be.

"And so that is the son! An unco man for the lassies, like his father before him." His eyelids drew together as he spoke. "Handsome, too—with a knowledge of life. It's a pity!" he said. "It's a pity! But he may not interfere. If he does, well—even if he does, the gods are with the Irish!"

 

 II

THE MEETING IN THE WOODS

Instead of entering the drawing-room after Dermott's departure, Frank turned with some abruptness toward Mrs. Ravenel.

"I am going for a walk, mother," he said, with no suggestion that she accompany him; and her intimate acquaintance with Francis, sixth of the name, made her understand with some accuracy the moods of his son, Francis seventh.

"You are handsomer than ever, Frank!" she exclaimed, as if in answer to the suggestion.

"You spoil me, mother," he returned, with a smile.

"Women have always done that—" she began.

"And you more than any other," Frank broke in, kissing her, with a deference of manner singularly his own.

"There may be truth in that," Mrs. Ravenel admitted, a fine sense of humor marked by the grudging tone in which she spoke. "I remember that only yesterday I was in a rage because the roses were not further open to welcome you home."

"Nature is unappreciative," he returned; and the gray eyes with the level lids looked into the blue ones with the level lids, and both laughed.

For a space Mrs. Ravenel contemplated him, the ecstasy of motherhood illuminating the glance.

"You are quite the handsomest 

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