but of Stafford, with whose face he had been wonderfully struck.
Stafford himself was the only one of the party, besides his artistic
tormentor, who had not abandoned himself to the charms of idleness. His
great work was understood to make rapid progress between six in the
morning, when he always rose, and half-past nine, when the party
assembled at breakfast; and he was also busy in writing a reply to a
daring person who had recently asserted in print that on the whole the
less said about the Council of Chalcedon the better.

"The Pope's wild about it!" reported Bob Territon to the usual
after-breakfast group on the lawn: "says the beggar's impudence licks
him."

"He shall not work any more," exclaimed Claudia, darting into the house,
whence she presently emerged, followed by Stafford, who resignedly sat
himself down with them.

Such forcible interruptions of his studies were by no means uncommon.
Eugene, however, who was of an observant turn, noticed--and wondered if
others did--that the raids on his seclusion were much more apt to be
successful when Claudia headed them than under other auspices. The fact
troubled him, not only from certain unworthy feelings which he did his
best to suppress, but also because he saw nothing but harm to be
possible from any close _rapprochement_ between Claudia and Stafford.
Kate, on the contrary, seemed to him to have set herself the task of
throwing them together; with what motive he could not understand, unless
it were the recollection of his ill-fated "Claudia." He did not think
this explanation very convincing, for he was well aware that Kate's
scorn of Claudia's attractions, as compared with her own, was perfectly
genuine, and such a state of mind would not produce the certainly active