Meantime the change in Steve Allen was perceptible to many who had no idea of the true reason it was so. Jacquelin set it down to the wrong cause. Miss Thomasia, like Jacquelin, laid Steve’s despondency at Blair’s door, and the good lady cast about in her mind how she might draw Blair into a discussion of the subject and give her some affectionate advice. But as often as she touched on the subject of love, even in the most distant way, bringing in Jacquelin as a sort of introduction, Blair shied off from it, so that Miss Thomasia found it more difficult to accomplish than she had anticipated. Steve, however, was working on his own lines. His present situation was intolerable to him. The fact that his name had not appeared on Jacquelin’s bill stuck in his memory like a thorn. He was lying on the grass under a tree in the court-green one afternoon reading a book, not a law-book either, when the sound of horses’ feet caught his ear. He looked up lazily as it came nearer, and soon in view appeared two riders, a girl and a young man. They cantered easily along the little street, their laughter coming across to Steve where he lay, his book neglected on the ground beside him. Steve stretched, and picking up his book dived once more into the “Idylls of the King.” But the spell was broken. A line from Dante flashed through his mind. Launcelot and Guinevere; Tristram and Isolt; Geraint and Enid, interested him no more. The reality had passed before him. Resting his head against the tree, he tried to go to sleep; but the minute denizens about in the grass bothered him, the droning of bees in the locust boughs above failed to lull him. “‘I am half sick of shadows,’” he murmured to himself, and he sat up and, resting against the tree, thought deeply. Another line came to him: “On burnished hooves his war-horse trode.” He suddenly sprang to his feet and walked straight to his office, his face resolute and his step determined. He was not a girl to be caught in a mesh! He would be the other. Jacquelin was at his desk, deep in a big law-book. Steve shut the door behind him and stood with his back against it looking down at his partner. “Jacquelin, I am going to marry Ruth Welch.” “What!” Jacquelin looked up in blank amazement. “Oh!” he laughed. “I thought you meant you had asked her.” “You misunderstand me. It is not conceit. It is determination. I have no idea she will accept me now; but she will in the end. She shall, I will win her.” He was grave, and though his words spoke conceit, his voice and face had not a trace of it. Jacquelin too became grave. “I believe you can win her if you try, Steve—unless someone else is in the way; but it is a long chase, I warn you.” Steve’s brow clouded for a second, but the shadow disappeared as quickly as it came.