"Not at all, my boy, you are perfectly welcome," answered the artist heartily. "Will you smoke?" "Thank you, I've got my pipe." He lighted his pipe and lay back in the chair watching the fire, while Beaumont, bending forward with his face in the shadow puffed at his cigarette, watching Reginald, and crouching on the dark staircase with her eye to the keyhole, a silent woman watched both. It was a curious situation and not without a touch of grim comedy, though, as a matter of fact, the play which the trio were about to act had more in it of the tragic than the comic element. Reginald, looking sad and weary, watched the fire for some moments, till Beaumont, feeling the silence oppressive, broke it with a laugh. "How fearfully dull you are, Blake," he said gaily, "is anything wrong?" Blake withdrew his sad eyes from the fire and looked at the speaker with a singular smile. "Not what many people would call wrong," he said at length. "I have a large income, I am young, and I marry the girl I love next week." "Well, as you can't call any of those blessings wrong, my friend, you ought to be perfectly happy." "No doubt--but perfect happiness is given to no mortal." "You are very young to moralize," said Beaumont with a faint sneer. "Yes, it appears absurd, doesn't it, but I can't help it; ever since I discovered the real story of my birth a shadow seems to have fallen on my life." "And why--who cares for the bar sinister now-a-days?" "Not many people I suppose, but I do--I daresay I have been brought up in an old-fashioned manner, but I feel the loss of my good name keenly--wealth can gild shame, not hide it." "Rubbish! you are morbidly sensitive on the subject." "No doubt I am--as I said before it's the fault of my bringing up--but come," he continued in a livelier tone, "I did not call to inflict my dismal mood upon you, let us talk of other things." "Such as your marriage?" "Certainly--marriage is a pleasant subject," said the young man with a quiet smile. "As I told you, I marry Miss Challoner next week and then we go abroad for a year or two." "And what about your property in the meantime?" asked Beaumont. "Oh, I'll leave it to my solicitors to attend to." "Why not appoint me your agent?" Blake coloured a little at this direct request and smiled in an embarrassed manner. "Well, I hardly see how I can do that," he said frankly, "I've only known you about three months, and besides, I have perfect confidence in my solicitors to manage the property, so, with all due respect to you, Beaumont, I must decline to appoint you my agent." He spoke with some haughtiness, as he was irritated at the cool way in which Beaumont spoke, but that gentleman seemed in nowise offended and smiled blandly as he answered: "If then, you will not help me in that way, will you give me some money--say five hundred pounds?"