He was lying on his back, looking up through the branches of a huge tree, when he reached what he considered this clear alternative. He was a man who seldom lied to himself; so now it was with a sudden sharpness that he felt the sting of self-deception.

"I've been trying to kid myself that I'm like the damn fool who runs away from the girl he's getting fond of because he's afraid of marriage. But I'm not. I'm the coward who's up to his knees, and funks letting himself all in for fear of not being able to reach what he's at least able to swim for."

At dinner, Amaryllis, in sheer kindness of heart, shone with good humour, readiness of reply and flow of conversation. Randal, while he felt that she now and then forced the note, caught her motive, and responding, smoothed her way. But Dick, having from childhood accepted Randal's immunity from love as an axiom, took it all in good faith, and emerging by quick degrees from his taciturnity, soon had his share of the talk and laughter.

He too had noticed at first a certain strain and effort in the girl's manner; but put it down to the absence of her father from the table. And so, when the trunk-call came to tell them he was dining with the Secretary of State and would be home late, and Amaryllis seemed to "settle into her stride," Dick thought of the matter no further, but only of her.

After coffee in the hall, Randal excused himself on the plea of letter-writing, and Amaryllis, alone with his brother, fell silent.

For a minute he watched her unobtrusively, and wondered why the life had gone out of her.

"Sleepy, Miss Caldegard?" he asked at last.

"No," she replied. "Tired—a little—and worried. Everybody's so keen on something. Father on—you know what. You, though I've never seen you do anything, look keener than any man I ever saw; and Sir Randal's keen about horrid business-letters. Generally I don't even want to open mine."

"'Cause you don't want to answer 'em," suggested Dick.

"Yes," admitted the girl, laughing—and suddenly stopped.

"What's up?" asked Dick.

"You've reminded me," she answered, pressing the bell beside her, "that there's one of my letters this morning that I never looked at. We were talking such a lot. I remember the look of the envelope. I haven't a notion what was 

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