_If_ he had loved her, she might have made anything of him; yet—but what if he did not? Lawrence admired her beauty and respected her goodness, but he did not love her—he only pretended to himself that he liked her better than any one else when they happened to be together. Possibly, if “love” came at will, he would have chosen then and there to love her with his whole heart and make her his wife. But Love is a fugitive, wild thing—bold as a robin, and timid as a lark—and usually none can fit any “why” or “wherefore” to its erratic wanderings. And hand in hand with Love is usually Pain—pain against which we cry out blindly, and wrestle and struggle to escape—childishly indifferent to the teaching of the Ages—that Pain alone is the soil in which grow Strength, and Courage, and Joy. In the worst hour of her suffering afterward, Eileen was yet, in a sense, happier and richer than the man who caused the pain. But now the fountain tinkled and the lights glowed softly, and the scent of hot-house flowers filled the air. “I thought it would be deadly at Omeath,” Lawrence was saying. “If it had not been for the mater, I should not have come, and, instead, it has been very pleasant. How often it happens that we start off on some trip we expect to enjoy thoroughly, and are disappointed all through; whereas we make martyrs of ourselves and undertake something we detest, and it turns out a pleasure from beginning to end.” Eileen looked a little thoughtful. The thought crossed her mind that he had not, then, came back for her. “Yet you seemed happy enough here before?” she remarked at last. “So I was,” he replied at once; “and I had just the same feeling about coming in the first place. But then I did not know about you, Eileen.” “But you did this time,” smiling. “Three years is so long,” he answered unblushingly; “and I imagined, of course, you would have changed, or got married, or something. Most girls change very much in three years.” “Do they?” quietly. “Yes; but you and Paddy are evidently different. I might have known you would be.” He turned the subject deftly to a less dangerous theme, speaking of mutual friends, until a sudden cutting censure brought a remonstrance to her lips. He looked into her face and changed his tone suddenly. “All the black sheep are white to you, Eileen. You are too ideal. You look at everything through the spectacles of idealism, and expect too much of life. You would be wiser to try and harden your heart, and care a little less about everything. You seem to regard most of your fellow-creatures as possible angels, and all the time we are most of us rogues and scoundrels.” “I don’t believe it,” firmly. “That’s because you don’t want to. All the same it is true. Half the world knows it, and makes no fuss; and the other half pretends to be blind for their own satisfaction.”