"it is not fair to tempt me. I should be a miserable cur if I held you to your word. I am a penniless beggar – a wastrel now, without a profession, without prospects, soon to be without friends."

      He seemed to take pleasure in recalling his defects, and she let him ramble on; women who are neither psychological puzzles nor interesting personalities have a way of listening patiently whilst a tortured soul eases its burden by contemplating its own martyrdom.

      "I am a penniless beggar," he reiterated. "I have no right to ask any woman to share my future dull and humdrum existence. A few thousands is all I have. I think that Edie will marry soon and then I can go abroad – I must go abroad – I must do something – "

      "We'll do it together, Luke."

      "I feel," he continued, rebellious now and wrathful, all the primary instincts alive in him of self-preservation and the desire to destroy an enemy, "I feel that if I stayed in England I should contrive to be even with that blackguard. His rights? By God! I would never question those. The moment I knew that he was Uncle Arthur's son I should have been ready to shake him by the hand, to respect him, to stand aside as was his due. But his attitude! – the influence he exercises over Uncle Rad! – his rancour against us all! Jim and Edie! what had they done to be all turned out of the house like a pack of poor relations – and poor Uncle Rad – "

      He checked himself, for she had put a hand on his coat sleeve.

      "Luke, it is no use," she said.

      "You are right, Lou! and I am a miserable wretch. If you only knew how I hate that man – "

      "Don't," she said, "let us think of him."

      "How can I help it? He robs me of you."

      "No," she rejoined, "not that."

      Her hand still rested on his arm, and he took it between both his. The couples in front of them all down the length of stairs paid no heed to them, and through the hum of voices, from a distant room beyond, came softly wafted on the hot, still air the strains of the exquisite barcarolle from the "Contes d' Hoffmann."