The door leading into the billiard-room opened softly. Horace Holmcroft

had waited to hear the result of Lady Janet's interference in his favor

until he could wait no longer.

He looked in cautiously, ready to withdraw again unnoticed if the two

were still talking together. The absence of Lady Janet suggested that

the interview had come to an end. Was his betrothed wife waiting alone

to speak to him on his return to the room? He advanced a few steps.

She never moved; she sat heedless, absorbed in her thoughts. Were they

thoughts of _him?_ He advanced a little nearer, and called to her.

"Grace!"

She sprang to her feet, with a faint cry. "I wish you wouldn't startle

me," she said, irritably, sinking back on the sofa. "Any sudden alarm

sets my heart beating as if it would choke me."

Horace pleaded for pardon with a lover's humility. In her present state

of nervous irritation she was not to be appeased. She looked away from

him in silence. Entirely ignorant of the paroxysm of mental suffering

through which she had just passed, he seated himself by her side, and

asked her gently if she had seen Lady Janet. She made an affirmative

answer with an unreasonable impatience of tone and manner which would

have warned an older and more experienced man to give her time before

he spoke again. Horace was young, and weary of the suspense that he

had endured in the other room. He unwisely pressed her with another

question.

"Has Lady Janet said anything to you--"

She turned on him angrily before he could finish the sentence. "You have

tried to make her hurry me into marrying you," she burst out. "I see it

in your face!"

Plain as the warning was this time, Horace still failed to interpret it

in the right way. "Don't be angry!" he said, good-humoredly. "Is it so

very inexcusable to ask Lady Janet to intercede for me? I have tried to

persuade you in vain. My mother and my sisters have pleaded for me, and

you turn a deaf ear--"

She could endure it no longer. She stamped her foot on the door with

hysterical vehemence. "I am weary of hearing of your mother and your

sisters!" she broke in violently. "You talk of nothing else."

It was just possible to make one more mistake in dealing with her--and

Horace made it. He took offense, on his side, and rose from the sofa.

His mother and sisters were high authorities in his estimation; they

variously represented his ideal of perfection in women. He withdrew

to the opposite extremity of the room, and administered the severest

reproof that he could think of on the spur of the moment.

"It would be well, Grace, if you followed the example set you by

my mother and my sisters," he said. "_They_ are not in the habit of

speaking cruelly to those who love them."




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