"It will give me both pleasure and diversion," said Quarren laughing. "There is not enough business in my office to afford me either. Also you are welcome to send for those pictures and store them in my back parlour until you can find a purchaser." "It's an idea, isn't it?" mused his lordship. "Now I don't suppose you happen to know anything about such rubbish, do you?--pictures and that sort. What?" "Why--yes--I do, in a way." "The devil you do! But then I've always been told that you know something about everything----" "Very, very little," said Quarren, laughing. "In an ignorant world smatterings are reverenced. But the fashionable Philistine of yesterday, who used to boast of his ignorance regarding things artistic and intellectual, is becoming a little ashamed of his ignorance----" Dankmere, reddening, said bluntly: "That applies to me; doesn't it?" "I beg your pardon!--I didn't mean it that way----" "You're right, anyway. I'm damnably ignorant.... See here, Quarren, if I send over for some of those pictures of mine, will you give me your opinion like a good fellow before I make a bally ass of myself by offering probable trash to educated people?" "I'll tell you all I know about your pictures, if that is what you mean," said Quarren, much amused. They shook hands as Sir Charles came up to make his adieux. "Good-bye," he said to Quarren. "I'm off to Newport to-morrow. And--I--I promised to ask you to come with me." "Where?" "Mrs. Sprowl told me to bring you. You know how informal she is." Quarren, surprised, glanced sharply at Sir Charles. "I don't believe she really wants me," he said. "If she didn't she wouldn't have made me promise to bring you. She's that sort, you know. Won't you come? I am sure that Mrs. Leeds, also, would be glad to see you." Quarren looked him coolly and unpleasantly in the eyes. "Do you really believe that?" he asked, almost insolently. Sir Charles reddened: "She asked me to say so to you. I heard from her this morning; and I have fulfilled her request." "Thank her for me," returned Quarren, level-eyed and very white. "Which means?" insisted Sir Charles quietly. "Absolutely nothing," said Quarren in a voice which makes enemies. * * * * * The following day Sir Charles left for Newport where Mrs. Sprowl had opened "Skyland," her villa of pink Tennessee marble, to a lively party of young people of which Strelsa Leeds made one. And once more, according to the newspapers, her engagement to Sir Charles was expected to be announced at any moment. When Quarren picked up the newspapers from his office desk next morning he found the whole story there--a story to which he had become accustomed.