remembered his moments, and she perceived that all the time he was suffering and mastering severe, perhaps poignant, pain. But again, when she asked him how he was, he smirked and flourished, till Lady Richard turned away in disgust and even the brothers looked a little puzzled and distressed as they followed her to the buffet and ministered to her wants.

"Sit down," said May, in a tone almost sharp. "No, sit at once, never mind whether I'm sitting or not."

He obeyed her with an overdone gesture of protest, but his face showed relief. She got a chair for herself and sat down by him.

"You spoke splendidly," she said, and hurried on, "No, no, don't thank me, don't tell me that you especially wished to please me, or that my approbation is your reward, or anything about beauty or bright eyes, or anything in the very least like that. It's all odious and I wonder why you—a man like you—should think it necessary to do it."

Quisanté looked startled; he had been leaning back in apparent exhaustion, but now he sat up straight and prepared to speak, a conciliatory smile on his lips.

"No, don't sit up, lean back. Don't talk, don't smile, don't be agreeable." She had begun to laugh at herself by now, but the laughter did not stop her. "You were ill, you were very ill, you looked almost dead, and you battled with it splendidly, and beat it splendidly, and went on and won. And then you must—Oh, why do you?"

"Why do I do what?" he asked, quietly enough now, with a new look of puzzle and bewilderment in his eyes, although his set smile had not disappeared.

"Why, go on as if there'd been nothing much really the matter, as if you'd had the vapours or the flutters, or something women have, or used to have when they were even sillier than they are." She laughed again, adding, "Really I was expecting Dick Benyon to propose to cut your stay-laces."

The Benyons were coming back; if she had more to say, there was no time for it; yet she managed a whisper as she shook hands with him, her gesture still forbidding him to rise. Her face, a little flushed with colour, bent down towards his and her voice was eager as she whispered,

"Good-night. Be simple, be yourself; it's worth while."

Then courage failed and she hurried off with a confused nervous farewell to her friends. Her breath came quick as she lay back in the brougham and closed her eyes.

Quisanté was tired and ill; he was unusually quiet in his parting talk with Lady Richard. Even she was sorry for him; and when pity entered little Lady Richard's heart it drove out all other emotions however strong, and routed all resolutions however well-founded.

"You look dead-beat, you do indeed," she said. She turned to her husband. "Dick, Mr. Quisanté must come and spend a few quiet days with us in the country. Something'll happen to him, if he doesn't."

Dick could hardly believe his ears, and was full of delighted gratitude; hitherto Lady Richard had been resolute that their country house at least should be sacred from Quisanté's feet. He took his wife's hand and pressed it as he joyfully seconded her invitation. Some of Quisanté's effusive politeness displayed itself again, but still he was subdued, and Lady Richard, full of her impulse of compassion, escaped without realising fully the enormity of the step into which it had tempted her.

CHAPTER IV.

HE'S COMING!

Dick Benyon was a man of plentiful ideas, but he found great difficulty in conveying them to others and even in expressing them to himself. Jimmy, his faithful disciple, could not help him here, and indeed was too much ashamed of harbouring such things as ideas to be of any service as an apostle. All the ideas were not Dick's own; in the case of the Imperial League, for example, he merely floated on the top of the flood-tide of opinion, and even the Crusade, his other and dearer pre-occupation, was the fruit of the Dean of St. Neot's brain as much as or even more than of his own. The Dean never got the credit of having ideas at all, first because he did not look like it, being short, stout, ruddy, and apparently very fond of his dinner, secondly because he never talked of his ideas to women. Mrs. Baxter did not care about ideas and possibly the Dean generalised rashly. More probably, perhaps, he had contracted a prejudice against talking confidentially to women from observing the ways of some of his brethren; he had dropped remarks which favoured this explanation. Anyhow he lost not only the soil most fruitful for propagation, but also the surest road to a reputation. Of the idea of the Crusade he was particularly careful to talk to men only; women, he felt sure, would tell him it was superb, and his wish was to be confronted with its difficulties and its absurdities, to overcome this initial opposition only with a struggle, and to enlist his antagonist as a fellow-warrior; he had especial belief in the persuasiveness of converts. Unluckily, however, as a rule only the first part of the programme passed into fact; he got the absurdities and difficulties pointed out freely enough, the conversions hung fire. Dick Benyon was almost the sole instance of the triumphant carrying-out of the whole scheme; but though Dick could believe and work, and could make Jimmy believe and nearly make Jimmy work, he could not preach himself nor make Jimmy preach in tones commanding enough to engage the respect and attention of the world. Who could then? Dick had answered "Weston Marchmont;" the Dean shook his head confidently but wistfully; he would have liked but did not expect to find a convert there.