A strange constraint is upon them both. As from time to time their eyes meet, each notes with a heavy heart the change wrought in these few months. On Keith it is even more apparent. His face is as pale as if the hot young blood had been frozen in its currents, and no longer could warm and colour that passionless exterior. The half petulant, wayward manner which had been charming in its very youthfulness and caprice, was now grave and chill, and had lost all its brightness and vivacity. "He is not happy," thinks Lauraine sadly, and she glances at the pretty little sparkling creature opposite, who is chattering and laughing as if she had not a care in the world, and had certainly escaped the contamination of her lover's gravity. "Do you make a long stay in London?" asks Keith, in a low voice, when the clatter of tongues and laughter is at its height. Lauraine looks suddenly up, and meets the blue eyes that seem to have lost all their fire and eagerness now. "No; only two or three weeks. Lady Etwynde comes back with me to Falcon's Chase for Christmas." "I--I have something to ask you," he says, almost humbly. "I have longed to see you often--just for one half-hour--to say this. You know I have grown so accustomed to take counsel with you that the old habit clings to me still. May I call on you to-morrow? May I see you alone? Do not look so alarmed; you need not fancy I have forgotten--Erlsbach." "I shall be very glad to see you if you want my advice," says Lauraine, very coldly. "But I can scarcely imagine you do. Surely, in all the momentous arrangements before you, Miss Jefferson is the person you should consult." "Yes," he answers quietly, "and her taste and mine so invariably clash that I find the best thing to do is to yield her undisputed choice. Can you imagine me yielding the palm of all things? Beaten into subjection. A good beginning, is it not?" Lauraine looks at him, inexpressibly pained by his words and tone. "She is very charming, and I daresay will make an admirable wife," she says uneasily. "I am sure every one admires your choice!" "Isn't that rather a disadvantage nowadays?" says Keith bitterly. 'The husband of the pretty Mrs. So-and-so' is not a very dignified appellation. You see scores of men running after your wife, and if you object are called a jealous fool, or 'bad style' or something of that sort. We certainly live in a delightful age for--women." "I don't think you ought to affect that cynical style of talking," says Lauraine gravely. "It doesn't sit naturally on your years, and it is too much like the caught-up cant of society. Women are no worse now than they have always been, I suppose, nor men either." "It is like old times to have you 'lecturing' me," says Keith, with a sudden smile--the first she has seen on his lips to-night.