Haward moved restlessly. “A generous thing,” he answered. “Ay, it was generous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who can tell? Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, who drinks my death in place of my health, who is of a nation that I dislike, and a party that is not mine?” She shook her head. “I do not know. And yet you helped him.” Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. “Yes, I helped him. I am not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, he told me that he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix my own position in men’s minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain the thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down a quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yet care not if I never reach it.” He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivory sticks. “I tread the stage as a fine gentleman,” he said. “It is the part for which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and gait. I was not asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do like it, as much as I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and that there is that within me which cries out against slovenliness, I play it as an artist should. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and generosity, courtesy, care for the thing which is, and not for that which seems? Why, then, with these and other qualities I strive to endow the character.” He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with his hand. “When the lights are out,” he said; “when forever and a night the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, he goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he will be told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tells him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure.” He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan. “Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?” he asked. “Your father presses, and I have not known what answer to make him.” “You will give us pleasure by your coming,” she said gently and at once. “My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and you know that my pretty stepmother likes you well.” “Will it please you to have me come?” he asked, with his eyes upon her face. She met his gaze very quietly. “Why not?” she answered simply. “You will help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old.”