"But it wouldn't hold good, I fancy, after all these years. Yet Law is
a queer business. Anyhow, I've got it."

An hour later he called on Mrs. Gasgoyne and Delia. Mrs. Gasgoyne was
not at home. After a little while, Gaston, having listened to some
extracts from the newspapers upon his "brilliant, powerful, caustic
speech, infinite in promise of an important career," quietly told her
that he was starting for Paris, and asked when they expected to go abroad
in their yacht. Delia turned pale, and could not answer for a moment.
Then she became very still, and as quietly answered that they expected to
get away by the middle of August. He would join them? Yes, certainly,
at Marseilles, or perhaps, Gibraltar. Her manner, so well-controlled,
though her features seemed to shrink all at once, if it did not deceive
him, gave him the wish to say an affectionate thing. He took her hand
and said it. She thanked him, then suddenly dropped her fingers on his
shoulder, and murmured with infinite gentleness and pride:

"You will miss me; you ought to!"

He drew the hand down.

"I could not forget you, Delia," he said.

Her eyes came up quickly, and she looked steadily, wonderingly at him.

"Was it necessary to say that?"

She was hurt--inexpressibly,--and she shrank. He saw that she
misunderstood him; but he also saw that, on the face of it, the phrase