a sudden impatient contraction of her brows moved almost imperceptibly nearer to him; she arranged her veil with her small, white-gloved hand, and then left it lying for an instant on the outside of the rug. It was very close to his; but Rupert Haverford did not touch the hand, nor enfold it as he might so easily have done protectingly in his large, brown, strong one.

Mrs. Lancing bit her lip.

"There is no mistake, we are in for a fog," she said jerkily, and she slipped her hand as she spoke back into the warmth of her big sable muff. It was not the first time that this man had unconsciously repulsed her; there were times when, in her irritation, she called him a prig. But she misjudged him; Rupert Haverford was not a prig, he was only a very straightforward, practical, in a sense, simple-minded man, who, like an explorer, was advancing step by step into an unknown world, meeting and mingling every day with elements that were not only new to him, but that belonged to a range of things about which he had never had occasion to think hitherto. Camilla herself was prominent amongst these new sensations; she at once was a bewilderment and a fascination. There had been no woman of this class in his life up to a couple of years before; indeed, women of any kind had played but a nominal part in the busy, uneventful, and certainly unpicturesque existence that had been his lot since early boyhood.

Mrs. Lancing, of course, knew briefly the outlines of the story of this working man and his sudden and unexpected accession to wealth, and recognized clearly enough that Haverford was as far removed in thought and social education from the various men who fluttered in and out of her life as the sun is from the earth; but she had little discrimination. With her it was never a question of character or quality; fundamentally she decreed all men were alike, strong in prejudice, weak in temptation, selfish, and even tyrannical; vain and sentimental, uncomfortably moral at times, but amazingly loyal, and, as a rule, sensitively moved by the potent charm of a woman of her temperament and attractions.

She liked men very much, she had many men friends, and few women friends, although the spontaneous effervescing sympathy, which was perhaps her most marked characteristic, made her very attractive to women, and accounted for her wide popularity; there was something so disarming, so delightful about Camilla Lancing. Beauty alone would never have given her a quarter the power she possessed; it was her ready interest (absolutely genuine for the moment), her quickness in associating herself with those things that were paramount with the persons who approached her, that made her irresistible to all sorts and kinds of people.

She had the tact of a delicately fashioned nature, and a vast amount of endurance.

But she was not patient, and the more she saw of Rupert Haverford, the more necessary he became to her, the less patience she had.

He puzzled her; he piqued her; he annoyed her; he made her nervous.

What were his feelings towards herself?

"He is so horribly slow," she mused now fretfully, "he ponders every word he says. I suppose he is terribly afraid of making a mistake. I am sure his money oppresses him. He must have been ever so much nicer when he was working as a foreman, or drayman, or whatever he was before all this money came to him."

She kept her eyes turned resolutely away from Haverford. For perversely enough, though he was so slow, so silent, so dull, he was exceedingly good to look at. Old-fashioned, or rather out of the fashion, he might be, but his manners were irreproachable, and his speech cultured, and he dressed very well.

It came to Camilla as an inspiration, as the car moved on cautiously through the cold white fog, that he was only shy and perhaps stupid.

Rupert Haverford had certainly a good amount of diffidence in his disposition, but at the present moment it was the most exquisite, and the most real sense of hospitality that tinged even his protective courtesy with restraint.

When their hostess had deserted the motor after luncheon, and had insisted in making her way homeward in a hired carriage, Haverford had been delighted because Mrs. Lancing had elected to return with him. But this very fact—the fact that this woman, who had been charming herself into his inmost thoughts of late, was alone with him, charged him with a sense of responsibility, and he steeled himself carefully against even a suggestion of the delicious intimacy with which the situation was fraught.

"The fog is lifting," he said, after a little while; "if we can only get off this road and turn inland, we shall drive out of it altogether."

Mrs. Lancing had her muff in front of her face; the fog made everything damp; her veil was clinging to her face uncomfortably.

"We are going downhill now," she said indistinctly.

Haverford was really a little anxious; they were certainly on a downward grade, and the progress was not pleasant; the road appeared to be rougher than it had been.

He sat forward, trying to scan what lay around and ahead, but the white gloom baffled him.

And then all at once the machine grated sharply; they shook in their seats, and Mrs. Lancing gave a little exclamation of alarm; then the car stood still, and the chauffeur got out hastily.

"We're done for now, sir," he said; and Rupert Haverford swallowed a word or two.

If it had not been for Mrs. Lancing he would not have cared two pins. Time was of no importance to him, and a breakdown rather interested him, as he had commenced to make a study of the mechanism of his various cars, and knew pretty well how to put them right when things went wrong, but this accident was most inopportune and annoying under the circumstances.

Fortunately the cold, thick mist seemed to part a little at this moment. With a reassuring word to his guest, Mr. Haverford got out and joined the chauffeur in his investigations.

It was very, very cold sitting in that raw, damp atmosphere, and Mrs. Lancing began to wish heartily enough that she had done her duty and gone back to Yelverton in the carriage with Mrs. Brenton.

She felt tired now, and even a little cross. All the pleasure vanished; that spell of delicious forgetfulness was swept away, and the morrow, with its wearying demands, confronted her like a phantom.

After a sharp conference with the chauffeur, Mr. Haverford approached his guest.

He spoke as cheerily as he could.

"Something has gone wrong with the works," he said, "we can't see what it is exactly in this gloom. I wonder if you would mind sitting here a little while I go and find out where we are? There may be somebody on hand who can help us to get along a bit."

Mrs. Lancing shook aside the rug.

"Do let me come with you?" she pleaded. "Really, I would much rather go, a walk will warm me up, and I shall feel so lonely without you. I believe I am frightened. May I come?"

Her pretty helplessness touched him, of course. And as he helped her to alight, Rupert Haverford felt his heart stir a little. So he supposed other men felt when they ministered to a wife or some one who had a tender claim on them.

They set off at a brisk pace down the hill.

Decidedly the fog was less thick, the bewildering effect on the eyes was passing, but it was still sufficiently cold and raw to make them shiver, though they were so warmly clad. Indeed, Mrs. Lancing was rather overweighted with her long coat, and her small feet stumbled every now and then.

Rupert Haverford drew her arm more closely through his.

He was conscious of a very tangible sense of pleasure in the near proximity of this pretty, womanly creature. The unconscious claim that she made upon his strength and protection moved him to tenderness, and her delightful affectation of indifference to any discomfort awakened his very real admiration.

"I have not the least idea where we are, but there must be a station somewhere near, I suppose,"