"I know that you can't go through the world without hurting people,"
cried Hardiman. "Neither you nor any one else, except the limpets. And
you won't escape hurting Stella Croyle, by abandoning your chances. Your
love-affair will end--all of that kind do. And yours will end in a
bitter, irretrievable quarrel after you have ruined yourself, and
because you have ruined yourself. You are already on the rack--make no
doubt about it. Oh, I have seen you twitch and jump with irritation--how
many times on this yacht!--for trumpery, little, unimportant things she
has said and done, which you would never have noticed six months ago;
or only noticed to smile at with a pleased indulgence."

Luttrell's face coloured. "Why, that's true enough," he said. He was
remembering the afternoon a week ago, when the yacht steamed between the
green islands with their bathing stations and châlets, over a tranquil,
sunlit sea of the deepest blue. Rounding a wooded corner towards sunset
she came suddenly upon the bridges and the palace and the gardens of
Stockholm. The women of the party were in the saloon. A rush was made
towards it. They were summoned to this first wonderful view of the city
of beauty. Would they come? No! Stella Croyle was in the middle of a
game of Russian patience. She could play that game any day, every day,
all day. This exquisite vision was vouchsafed to her but the once, and
she had neglected it with the others. She had not troubled, even to move
so far as the saloon door. For she had not finished her game.

Luttrell recalled his feeling of scorn; the scorn had grown into
indignation; in the end he had made a grievance of her indifference to
this first view of the city of Stockholm; a foolish, exasperating
grievance, which would rankle, which would not be buried, which sprang
to fresh life at each fresh sight of her. Yes, of a certainty, sooner or
later Stella Croyle and he would quarrel, so bitterly that all the