He withdrew with more apologies as soon as the short discussion between father and daughter was ended, and rejoined his friend outside. “Well,” said Clifford, as Otto turned toward Stroan in silence, “and what kept you so long talking to the severe-looking lady?” “I wasn’t talking. I was listening,” answered Otto, “and working out in my mind a romance, a pitiful romance, of the kind that is not showy enough for people to care to hear about.” “What! Do you mean to say that Jordan’s fallen in love with that mature and lean spinster?” asked Clifford in astonishment. “Oh, dear, no. He’s fallen in love; I’ve found that out; but it is with the usual maid of the inn--nobody half so interesting as Miss Bostal.” “Interesting!” “Yes. I have an idea that the lean spinster is a heroine. Not the sort of heroine one troubles oneself about, of course. But while they were talking about a certain ‘Nell,’ who is evidently the object of Jordan’s priceless but transient affections just now, I looked into their rooms, their poor little dining-room, their bare, long drawing-room, and I saw such a history of pinched lives and sordid struggles as made me long for pen and paper.” Clifford groaned. “It doesn’t take much to make you do that!” he grumbled. “And I don’t think your subject a very interesting one.” “Of course you would not. It is not obvious or commonplace or highly-colored enough for you,” retorted Otto. “But to my mind there is something infinitely pathetic in the tattered old coat of this dignified and distinguished-looking old man, and in the darns which the daughter must have lost the brightness of her eyes over.” “Decidedly, my dear boy, you must do it in poetry, not prose,” said Clifford, mockingly. Otto would have retorted, but that they had now reached the little bridge over the river Fleet, and were within a few yards of the halfway house. “This is the place where Jordan spends his afternoons,” said Otto, leading the way to the little inn. “Let’s have him out.” The Blue Lion was a very unpretending establishment, old, but without any pretensions to historical or archæological interest, small, inconvenient, and weather-beaten. Standing as it did midway between sleepy Stroan and democratic Courtstairs, it was the house of call for all the carriers, farmers and cattle-drovers all the year round, while in the months of July and August its little bar was thronged with the denizens of the Mile-end Road, who take their pleasure in brakes, with concertinas and howls and discordant songs.