between them. Since, then, his partner in the undertaking had been
foolish, Davenant felt the necessity on his side of being doubly
discreet. Moreover, he was intuitive enough to feel her antipathy toward
him on purely general grounds. "I'm not her sort," was the summing-up of
her sentiments he made for himself. He could not wholly see why he
excited her dislike since, beyond a moment of idiotic presumption long
ago, he had never done her any harm.

He fancied that his personal appearance, as much as anything, was
displeasing to her fastidiousness. He was so big, so awkward; his hands
and feet were so clumsy. A little more and he would have been ungainly;
perhaps she considered him ungainly as it was. He had tried to negative
his defects by spending a great deal of money on his clothes and being
as particular as a girl about his nails; but he felt that with all his
efforts he was but a bumpkin compared with certain other men--Rodney
Temple, for example--who never took any pains at all. Looking at her
now, her pure, exquisite profile bent over her piece of work, while the
sun struck coppery gleams from her masses of brown hair, he felt as he
had often felt in rooms filled with fragile specimens of
art--flower-like cups of ancient glass, dainty groups in Meissen, mystic
lovelinesses wrought in amber, ivory, or jade--as if his big, gross
personality ought to shrink into itself and he should walk on tiptoe.

"I understand from my father," she said, when she found herself obliged
to break the silence, "that you've offered to help him in his
difficulties. I couldn't let the occasion pass without telling you how
much I appreciate your generosity."

She spoke without looking up; words and tone were gently courteous, but
they affected him like an April zephyr, that ought to bring the balm of