to custom, fended the quarrel now.

"Oh! because I have been here three nights in succession, I suppose,
and did not find you here. I was disappointed."

"But you found Uncle Septimus in his study. I could hear you
talking there until quite late."

"Of course I was very glad to see him and talk with him. For it is
to him that I owe a certain half-developed impatience with the
uneducated--with whom I deal all my life, except for a few hours now
and then in the study and here in the turf-shelter with you. I can
see--even in the dark--that you look grave. Do not do that. It is
not worth that."

He broke off with his easy laugh, as if to banish any suggestion of
gravity coming from himself.

"It is not worth looking grave about. And I am sorry if I was rude
a minute ago. I had no right, of course, to assume that you would
be here. I suppose it was impertinent--was that it?"

"I will not quarrel," she answered, soothingly--"if that is what you
want."

Her voice was oddly placid. It almost seemed to suggest that she
had come to-night for a certain purpose; that one subject of
conversation alone would interest her, and that to all others she
must turn a deaf ear.