‘Ah, then you are hopeless, for you will feel yourself disinterested,’ said Leo, so busy with the balls that once more he missed seeing Lord Will’s hand stretched out. ‘I say, Swinford, there’s no ill-feeling, I hope.’ ‘Why should there be any ill-feeling?’ said Leo, raising his eyes for a moment with a benign but too radiant smile. He turned to the balls again the next moment as he said lightly with a wave of his cue, ‘Good night.’ It is confusing, it must be allowed, to a plain intelligence, to have one member of a family force information of the most serious kind upon you, while another avoids shaking hands with you because you believe it. Such things happen, no doubt, in the world, but they are rare, and Lord Will went upstairs to his room in a very uncomfortable state of mind, not knowing which he should depend on of those two conflicting powers. Leo remained for some time after, still knocking about the balls. Morris, with whom his master in the dearth of other companions had sometimes played an occasional game, hung about in prospect of a call. But Morris was disappointed, though it was perhaps an hour later before Mr. Swinford left that uninviting occupation. He went on with the gravest face in the world, but very devious strokes, evidently as indifferent to what he was doing as he was overwhelmingly serious in doing it. The click of the balls and of his steps round the table gave a curious sound in the midst of the silence of the great house. Such sounds say more of solitude than the most complete stillness, and Leo’s countenance was as grave as if he had been playing, like a man in an old legend, with some unseen being for his own soul. XXX