Kingcote smiled, but made no other reply. She leaned down from her horse and gave him her hand; he touched it very gently, feeling that little Percy Vissian’s fashion of courtesy would have been far more becoming than the mere grasp one gives to equals. Then she rode away. Isabel was, as we know, a perfect horsewoman, and her figure showed well in the habit. Kingcote fell back into his reverie. He had but one change of garments at all better than those he wore; not having donned them for more than two months, he found himself very presentable, by comparison, when he had completed his toilet before the square foot of looking-glass which hung against the wall in his bedroom. His hair had grown a trifle long, it is true, but that rather became him, and happily he had not finally abandoned the razor. His boots were indifferently blacked by the woman who came each day to straighten things, so he took a turn with the brushes himself. “After all,” he reflected, “it is a ceremony. I lack the courage of the natural man. But I would not have her accuse me of boorishness.” And again: “So this is the Lady of Knightswell? The water of the well is enchanted, Percy told me. Have I already drunk the one cup which is allowed?” He reached the house-door just before the hour appointed for luncheon. With heartbeats sensibly quickened he followed the servant who led him to the drawing-room. Mrs. Clarendon and Ada were sitting here together. Isabel presented him to Miss Warren, then took the volume from his hands and looked into it. “You know Sir Thomas Browne, no doubt, Ada,” she said. “I know the ‘Urn-burial,’” Ada replied, calmly examining the visitor. “Ah me, you put me to shame! There’s the kind of thing that I read,” she continued, pointing to a “Society” journal which lay on the table. “By-the-bye, what was it that Mr. Asquith said in defence of such literature? I really mustn’t forget that word. Oh, yes, he said it was concrete, that it dealt with the concrete. Mr. Kingcote looks contemptuous.” “On the whole I think it’s rather more entertaining than Sir Thomas Browne,” remarked Ada. “At all events, it’s modern.” “Another argument!” exclaimed Isabel. “You an ally, Ada! But don’t defend me at the expense of Mr. Kingcote’s respect.” “Mr. Kingcote would probably respect me just as much, or as little, for the one taste as for the other.” “Miss Warren would imply,” said Kingcote in a rather measured way, due to his habits of solitude, “that after all sincerity is the chief thing.” “And a genuine delight in the Newgate Calendar,” added the girl, “vastly preferable to an affected reverence for Shakespeare.” Kingcote looked at her sharply. One had clearly to take this young lady into account. “You sketch from nature, I believe, Miss Warren?” he asked, to get the relief of a new subject. “To please myself, yes.” “And to please a good many other people as well,” said Mrs. Clarendon. “Ada’s drawings are remarkably good.”