The very perfection of comradeship it had been, full of charming surprises as well as a rest both mental and physical. For Chrysos made few demands on his intellect--that is, at first she had made very few. Later--within the past few weeks, he remembered now his surprise to find how much there really was to the young girl--and that perhaps her age and inexperience alone marked any particular intellectual chasm between them. Thinking of these things he sauntered on across country, and after a while came to the grounds of the Ledwith place, wondering a little that a note from Mrs. Sprowl the evening before should have requested him to present himself at so early an hour. A man took his card, returned presently saying that Mrs. Ledwith had not yet risen, but that Mrs. Sprowl would receive him. Conducted to the old lady's apartments he was ushered into a dressing-room done in pastel tints, and which hideously set forth the colouring and proportions of Mrs. Sprowl in lace bed-attire, bolstered up in a big cane-backed chair. "I'm ill," she said hoarsely; "I have been ill all night--sitting here because I can't lie down. I'd strangle if I lay down." He held her hand in his firm, sun-tanned grasp, looking down compassionately: "Awf'lly sorry," he said as though he meant it. The old lady peered up at him: "You're sailing to-morrow?" "To-morrow," he said, gravely. "When do you return?" "I have made no plans to return." "You mean to say that you've given up the fight?" "There was never any fight," he said. Mrs. Sprowl scowled: "Has that heartless girl refused you again, Sir Charles?" "Dear Mrs. Sprowl, you are too much my partisan. Mrs. Leeds knows better than you or I where her heart is really inclined. And you and I can scarcely question her decision." "Do you think for a moment it is inclined toward that miserable nephew of mine?" she demanded. "No," he said. "Then--do you mean young Quarren?" "I think I do," he said smiling. "I'm glad of it!" she said angrily. "If it was not to be you I'm glad that it may be Rix. It--it would have killed me to see her fall into Langly's hands.... I'm ill on account of him--his shocking treatment of me last evening. It was a brutal scene--one of those terrible family scenes!--and he threatened me--cursed me----" She closed her eyes a moment, trembling all over her fat body; then they snapped open again with the old fire undiminished: "Before I've finished with Langly he'll realise who has hold of him.... But I'm not well. I'm going to Carlsbad. Shall I see you there?" "I'm afraid not." "You are going back into everything, I suppose." "Yes." "To forget her, I suppose." He said pleasantly: "I do not wish to forget her. One prefers to think often of such a woman as Mrs. Leeds. There are not many like her. It is something of a privilege to have cared for her, and the memory is not--painful."