At Love's Cost

"That's just what I have been doing," said Stafford, with a laugh.

"I've had an adventure--"

"I know," interrupted Howard, with a sigh. "You are going to tell me

how you hooked a trout six foot in length, how it dragged you a mile

and a half up the river, how you got it up to the bank, and how, just

as you were landing it, it broke away and was lost. Every man who has

been fishing has that adventure."

Stafford laughed with his usual appreciation of his friend's amusing

cynicism; but he did not correct him; for at that moment, the neat

maid-servant brought in the trout, which proved to be piping hot and of

a golden-brown; and the two men commenced a dinner which, as compared

with the famous, or infamous one, of the London restaurant, was

Olympian. The landlord himself brought in a bottle of claret, which

actually was sound, and another of port, in a wicker cradle, which even

Howard deigned to approve of; and the two men, after they had lingered

over their dinner, got into easy-chairs beside the fire and smoked

their cigars with that sweet contentment which only tobacco can

produce, and only then when it follows a really good meal.

"Do you know how long you are going to stay in your father's little

place?" Howard asked, after a long and dreary silence.

Stafford shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"'Pon my word, I don't know," he answered. "I'm like the school-boy: 'I

don't know nothink.' I suppose I shall stay as long as the governor

does; and, come to that, I suppose he doesn't know how long that will

be. I've got to regard him as a kind of stormy petrel; here to-day and

gone to-morrow, always on the wing, and never resting anywhere for any

time. I'm never surprised when I hear that, though his last letter was

dated Africa, he has flown back to Europe or has run over to

Australia."

"Y-es," said Howard, musingly, "there is an atmosphere of mystery and

romance about your esteemed parent, Sir Stephen Orme, which smacks of

the Arabian Nights, my dear Stafford. Man of the world as I am, I must

confess that I regard him with a kind of wondering awe; and that I

follow his erratic movements very much as one would follow the

celestial progress of a particularly splendacious comet. He never

ceases to be an object of wonderment to me; and I love to read of his

gigantic projects, his vast wealth, his brilliant successes; and I tell

you frankly that I am looking forward to seeing him with a mixture of

fear and curiosity. Do not be surprised, if, at my introduction, I fall

on my hands and knees in Oriental abasement. I have admired him so much

and so long at a distance that he has assumed in my eyes an almost

regal, not to say imperial, importance." "I hope you will like him,"

said Stafford, with a touch of that simplicity which all his friends

liked.