and the profession that she herself certainly would recoil from such an
adventure. Spencer Brydon meanwhile held his peace--for the moment; the
question of the "evil" hours in his old home had already become too grave
for him. He had begun some time since to "crape," and he knew just why a
packet of candles addressed to that pursuit had been stowed by his own
hand, three weeks before, at the back of a drawer of the fine old
sideboard that occupied, as a "fixture," the deep recess in the dining-
room. Just now he laughed at his companions--quickly however changing
the subject; for the reason that, in the first place, his laugh struck
him even at that moment as starting the odd echo, the conscious human
resonance (he scarce knew how to qualify it) that sounds made while he
was there alone sent back to his ear or his fancy; and that, in the
second, he imagined Alice Staverton for the instant on the point of
asking him, with a divination, if he ever so prowled. There were
divinations he was unprepared for, and he had at all events averted
enquiry by the time Mrs. Muldoon had left them, passing on to other
parts.

There was happily enough to say, on so consecrated a spot, that could be
said freely and fairly; so that a whole train of declarations was
precipitated by his friend's having herself broken out, after a yearning
look round: "But I hope you don't mean they want you to pull _this_ to
pieces!" His answer came, promptly, with his re-awakened wrath: it was
of course exactly what they wanted, and what they were "at" him for,
daily, with the iteration of people who couldn't for their life
understand a man's liability to decent feelings. He had found the place,
just as it stood and beyond what he could express, an interest and a joy.
There were values other than the beastly rent-values, and in short, in
short--! But it was thus Miss Staverton took him up. "In short you're
to make so good a thing of your sky-scraper that, living in luxury on