fire for Evelyn and sat down opposite her. The room was low and shadowy,
and partly paneled. Against one wall stood a black oak sideboard, with a
plate-rack above it, and a great chest of the same material with
ponderous hand-forged hinge-straps stood opposite it. A clock with an
engraved metal dial and a six-foot case, polished to a wonderful luster
by the hands of several generations, ticked in one corner; and here and
there the firelight flickered upon utensils of burnished copper. There
was little in the place that looked less than a century old, for there
are nooks in the North that have still escaped the ravages of the
collector. Outside, the rain dripped from the massy flagstone eaves, and
the song of the river stole in monotonous cadence into the room.

Evelyn was silent and Vane said nothing for a while. He had been in the
air all day, and though this was nothing new to him he was content to sit
lazily still and leave the opening of conversation to his companion. In
the meanwhile it was pleasant to glance toward her now and then. The
pale-tinted dress became her, and he felt that the room would have looked
less cheerful had she been away; though this by no means comprised the
whole of his sensations. After living almost entirely among men, he had
of late met three women who had impressed him in different ways, and they
had all been pleasant to look upon.

First, there was Kitty Blake, little, graceful and, in a way, alluring;
and it was she who had first roused in him a vague desire for a companion
who could be more to him than a man could be. Beyond that, pretty as she
was, she had only moved him to chivalrous pity and a wider sympathy.

Then he had met Jessy Horsfield, whom he admired. She was a clever woman
and a handsome one, but she had scarcely stirred him at all.