Nevertheless, she found herself sitting in the little alcove half-way up the big staircase with him, where the moonlight came through the stained-glass window and made a pattern on the floor, shaded by the heavy curtains from the glare of the lights. Below them in the bright comfortable hall near a large log fire, they could see the little groups, that laughed and applauded, while Jack in company with a youth as lively and irresponsible as himself, feigned a merriment he was far from feeling. Paddy watched, and in her own quaint way, rebelled against a Fate that made puppets of herself and her friends, for she understood exactly what was passing in Jack’s mind. Indeed, she was so engrossed that she gave quite a start when her companion, after watching her in silence for some minutes, remarked quietly: “I’d give something to know what you are thinking of, Miss Adair.” “Why! the group down there, of course,” she answered. “They look so pretty, don’t they, in evening dress, with the big old hall for background and the firelight on their faces?” “Yes,” quietly, “but personally I can find a still more pleasing picture close at hand.” “Oh, the moonlight!” with a gesture of impatience. “It’s making you look quite sentimental. Please don’t give way to it, though, because if so, I shall be obliged, to give up this comfortable chair and go to the hall. I can’t bear sentimental people; they irritate me frightfully.” The man smiled a little in the shadow, and the look of innate strength and resoluteness of purpose deepened on his face. There was that in Ted Masterman’s eyes to-night, as from the vantage ground of shadow, they jested unceasingly on Paddy’s face, which suggested a preparation for a struggle in which he meant to win. How long or how short seemed a matter of little importance just then; for one instinctively saw in him the steady perseverance of the man who knows how to wait. And it is generally to such the victory is given; for greater than the power of riches, or learning, is the power of knowing how to wait. Ever since Ted Masterman helped a drenched, dripping figure of a girl into his little sailing yacht, and met that frank face that ended in laughter, in spite of her sorry plight, he had known himself her slave, and that henceforth the purpose of his life would be to win her. If the winning was to be hard, and suffering entailed, he was prepared to face it, because he knew that Paddy was worth the cost, whatever it proved, from the first time that he saw her in her own home. His keen eyes noted instantly that the charm and brightness, which made her so popular abroad, were just as freely lavished upon her own circle, and that if she were beloved by her outside friends, she was yet more beloved and idolised there. Then, when he found her perfectly indifferent to his attentions, the spirit of conquest was roused within him tenfold, and he loved her yet more for her airy independence.