“She had a younger brother,” he said, “God rest his soul! He was bad--as reckless and vicious a youth as has ever been my unhappy fortune to see, and how _he hurt Sheila_. I saw it, and I suffered a thousand times for her. I’d find her with tears on her cheeks, and know that some new devilishness had cropped out. And I railed, as youth will rail, Jane, and it drove her from me. . . . When, (a long story this, but I can’t seem to shorten it) after she had set the date for our wedding, her younger brother was found to have tuberculosis, and she said that I must wait, while she went west with him and fought with him for health, I lost control of every brake I had, and I went to pieces. “And well, I remember it! Her standing in the high ceilinged drawing room of the old New York home, and saying, ‘Well, Terry, if you make me choose, I can do only one thing. I cannot evade duty. My brother may not last a year--’ and I turned and went-- “And the next day I wrote her, but I had no answer. And that was the end of it, and of everything, and you see, now, why I can’t--meet her.” “Why did you change your name!” I asked. I am too dull to say the appropriate thing, so I usually ask or say what I really want to. “An Uncle wanted to adopt me . . . . He was a lonely old chap; I had no one, and I thought he was mighty pathetic, until he died and left me a more than fair sized fortune, (A great thing to have, Jane, by the way, if you’ve a fancy for writing books!) and then, well I thought he was a humbug, but I was grateful, and I have been ever since--” He stood up and smiled down at me. No one who hadn’t known him for long would have thought his smile stiff, or forced, but I knew that it was. “But are you over caring for her?” I asked. “I didn’t know if it were very real, that it would change--” “I am not,” he answered, “what you term ‘over it,’ and there is no changing for me, but for my peace I think less of it and of the hopes that the boy named Terrence O’Gilvey sent up to his gods.” Then, Viola and Sam came wandering back to stand on the upper terrace uncertainly, and Mr. Wake called to them. “Come on down,” he said, “we’re ready for our tea--” And then a maid who wore a scarlet waist, and a black skirt with scarlet bands around it, a little white cap on her head, and a Roman striped scarf around her waist, came toward us with a big tray which she set on a table that Sam brought up. It was very, very pretty. . . . But it suddenly seemed hollow. . . . I wondered whether it were always hollow for Mr. Wake. . . . And I thought how nice it would be if pretty Miss Sheila were smiling at him from across the table, and knew, without asking, how many lumps of sugar he would take, and whether his tea should be strong or weak. “How many loads,” asked Sam as he picked up the sugar spoon. “Two for me,” I answered. “None,” said Viola who is afraid of fat. “Where is Leslie?” asked Mr. Wake who had evidently just noticed her absence.