"If they are married," added Elisabeth; "not unless. I often think when I go up into the drawing-room at a dinner-party, I will just say the word 'cook' to find out which of the women are married and which single. I'm certain I should know at once, from the expression the magic word brought to their respective faces. It is only when you have a husband that you regard the cook as the ruling power in life for good or evil." There was a pause while the footman brought in tea and Elisabeth poured it out; then Farquhar said suddenly-- "I feel a different man from the one that rang at your door-bell some twenty minutes ago. The worldliness has slipped from me like a cast-off shell; now I experience a democratic indifference to my Lady Silverhampton, and a brotherly affection for Mr. Edgar Ford. And this is all your doing!" "I don't see how that can be," laughed Elisabeth; "seeing that Lady Silverhampton is a friend of mine, and I have never heard of Mr. Edgar Ford." "But it is; it is your own unconscious influence upon me. Miss Farringdon, you don't know what you have been and what you are to me! It is only since I knew you that I have realized how little all outer things really matter, and how much inner ones do; and how it is a question of no moment who a man is, compared with what a man is. And you will go on teaching me, won't you, and letting me sit at your feet, until the man in me is always what now the artist in me is sometimes?" "I shall like to help you if I can; I am always longing to help people, and yet so few people ever seem to want my help." And Elisabeth's eyes grew sad. "I want it--more than I want anything in the world," replied Cecil; and he really meant it, for the artist in him was uppermost just then. "Then you shall have it." "Thank you--thank you more than I can ever say." After a moment's silence Elisabeth asked-- "Are you going to Lady Silverhampton's picnic on the river to-morrow?" "Yes; I accepted because I thought I should be sure to meet you," replied Cecil, who would have accepted the invitation of a countess if it had been to meet his bitterest foe. "Then your forethought will be rewarded, for I am going, too," Elisabeth said. And then other callers were shown in, and the conversation was brought to an abrupt conclusion; but it left behind it a pleasant taste in the minds of both the principals. CHAPTER XIV ON THE RIVER For many a frivolous, festive year I followed the path that I felt I must; I failed to discover the road was drear, And rather than otherwise liked the dust. It led through a land that I knew of old, Frequented by friendly, familiar folk, Who bowed before Mammon, and heaped up gold, And lived like their neighbours, and loved their joke.