want to marry you or anybody, and I never shall. I want to be
free and to succeed in my work, just as you want to succeed in
your work. So please never speak of this again." When she
went away the lodger used to sit smoking in the big arm-chair and
beat the arms with his hands, and he would pace up and down the
room while his work would lie untouched and his engagements pass
forgotten.

Summer came and London was deserted, dull, and dusty, but the
lodger stayed on in Jermyn Street. Helen Cabot had departed on a
round of visits to country houses in Scotland, where, as she
wrote him, she was painting miniatures of her hosts and studying
the game of golf. Miss Cavendish divided her days between the
river and one of the West End theatres. She was playing a small
part in a farce-comedy.

One day she came up from Cookham earlier than usual, looking very
beautiful in a white boating frock and a straw hat with a Leander
ribbon. Her hands and arms were hard with dragging a punting
pole and she was sunburnt and happy, and hungry for tea.

"Why don't you come down to Cookham and get out of this heat?"
Miss Cavendish asked. "You need it; you look ill."

"I'd like to, but I can't," said Carroll. "The fact is, I paid
in advance for these rooms, and if I lived anywhere else I'd be
losing five guineas a week on them."

Miss Cavendish regarded him severely. She had never quite
mastered his American humor.