"She would have come to care for me," Horace's thoughts ran on, disjointedly. "I could have sworn that that last day of all--and her people didn't seem to object to me. Her mother asked me cordially enough to call on them when they were back in town. When I did----" When he had called, there had been a difference--not an unusual sequel to an acquaintanceship begun in a Continental watering-place. It was difficult to define, but unmistakable--a certain formality and constraint on Mrs. Futvoye's part, and even on Sylvia's, which seemed intended to warn him that it is not every friendship that survives the Channel passage. So he had gone away sore at heart, but fully recognising that any advances in future must come from their side. They might ask him to dinner, or at least to call again; but more than a month had passed, and they had made no sign. No, it was all over; he must consider himself dropped. "After all," he told himself, with a short and anything but mirthful laugh, "it's natural enough. Mrs. Futvoye has probably been making inquiries about my professional prospects. It's better as it is. What earthly chance have I got of marrying unless I can get work of my own? It's all I can do to keep myself decently. I've no right to dream of asking any one--to say nothing of Sylvia--to marry me. I should only be rushing into temptation if I saw any more of her. She's not for a poor beggar like me, who was born unlucky. Well, whining won't do any good--let's have a look at Beevor's latest performance." He spread out a large coloured plan, in a corner of which appeared the name of "William Beevor, Architect," and began to study it in a spirit of anything but appreciation. "Beevor gets on," he said to himself. "Heaven knows that I don't grudge him his success. He's a good fellow--though he _does_ build architectural atrocities, and seem to like 'em. Who am I to give myself airs? He's successful--I'm not. Yet if I only had his opportunities, what wouldn't I make of them!" Let it be said here that this was not the ordinary self-delusion of an incompetent. Ventimore really had talent above the average, with ideals and ambitions which might under better conditions have attained recognition and fulfilment before this. But he was not quite energetic enough, besides being too proud, to push himself into notice, and hitherto he had met with persistent ill-luck. So Horace had no other occupation now but to give Beevor, whose offices and clerk he shared, such slight assistance as he might require, and it was by no means cheering to feel that every year of this enforced semi-idleness left him further handicapped in the race for wealth and fame, for he had already passed his twenty-eighth birthday.