"Belward, don't take me for a fool. Why, my trying what you go to do is
like--is like--"

Cluny's similes failed to come.

"Like a fox and a deer on the same trail?"

"I don't understand that. Like a yeomanry steeplechase to Sandown--is
that it? Belward, I'm sorry. Playing it so low on a chap you like!"

"Don't say a word, Cluny; and, believe me, you haven't yet seen all of
It. There's plenty of time. When you really have had It, you will learn
to say of a woman, not that she's the very finest, and that you hate
breakfasting alone, but something that'll turn your hair white, or keep
you looking forty when you're sixty."

That evening Gaston dressed with unusual care. When he entered the
drawing-room, he looked as handsome as a man need in this world.
His illness had refined his features and form, and touched off his
cheerfulness with a fine melancholy. Delia glowed as she saw the
admiring glances sent his way, but burned with anger when she also saw
that he was to take in Lady Gravesend to dinner; for Lady Gravesend had
spoken slightingly of Gaston--had, indeed, referred to his "nigger
blood!" And now her mother had sent her in to dinner on his arm, she
affable, too affable by a great deal. Had she heard the dry and subtle
suggestion of Gaston's talk, she would, however, have justified her
mother.

About half past nine Delia was in the doorway, talking to one of the
guests, who, at the call of some one else, suddenly left her. She heard