her own weakness, she constantly attempted to lead the conversation into impersonal channels, speaking preferably of his work.

“Tell me,” she said, negligently fanning herself, “what new inspiration have you drawn from your stay at the seaside?”

“Why,” he exclaimed enthusiastically, “volumes and volumes of it. I shall write the great novel of my life after I am once more quietly installed at Riverside Drive.”

“The great American novel?” she rejoined.

“Perhaps.”

“Who will be your hero — Clarke?”

There was a slight touch of malice in her words, or rather in the pause between the penultimate word and the last. Ernest detected its presence, and knew that her love for Reginald was dead. Stiff and cold it lay in her heart’s