I've been wondering who she could be."

"When a man's preoccupied there must be a lady then?" Russell
inquired.

"That seems to be the view of your sex," Mrs; Palmer suggested.
"It was my husband who said it, not Mildred or I."

Mildred smiled faintly. "Papa may be singular in his ideas; they
may come entirely from his own experience, and have nothing to do
with Arthur."

"Thank you, Mildred," her cousin said, bowing to her gratefully.
"You seem to understand my character--and your father's quite as
well!"

However, Mildred remained grave in the face of this customary
pleasantry, not because the old jest, worn round, like what
preceded it, rolled in an old groove, but because of some
preoccupation of her own. Her faint smile had disappeared, and,
as her cousin's glance met hers, she looked down; yet not before
he had seen in her eyes the flicker of something like a
question--a question both poignant and dismayed. He may have
understood it; for his own smile vanished at once in favour of a
reciprocal solemnity.

"You see, Arthur," Mrs. Palmer said, "Mildred is always a good
cousin. She and I stand by you, even if you do stay away from us
for weeks and weeks." Then, observing that he appeared to be so
occupied with a bunch of iced grapes upon his plate that he had