"Certainly, if she wishes it."

"She and Lena must be friends; our children ought to be friends. And you and I," she said, with deeper feeling in her voice, "must not lose sight of each other again."

"Of course not," he answered, and this time he managed to look at her with his old smile, in which there had always been a charm. It went to her heart and made her a natural woman. With something like a sigh she watched him as he descended the stairs.

"I could love him now," she thought, "and go to the devil for him too, with all the pleasure in the world. But he's so abominably good that he will probably be faithful to his farmer woman till the breath is out of his body."

"Well, would you like to go and stay there some day?" Mr. Vincent asked Margaret.

"No," she answered, quickly, and then she added, reluctantly, and because she couldn't help it; "I don't know why it is, father, but I feel as if I never wanted to go there again."

"That's right," he said. What the answer meant she didn't quite understand, but she rubbed her shoulder against his in sheer sympathy. A hansom gives little scope for variety in caresses, but this did well enough.

IX

At ten o'clock next morning Tom Carringford appeared at the Langham.

"Miss Vincent said you were staying here, so I made bold to come," he explained, with a boyish frankness that immediately won over Mr.

Vincent. "Please forgive me, and don't think it awfully cool of me to come so early. I was afraid I should miss you if I waited."

"I'm very glad to see you," Mr. Vincent said. "I knew your father well."

And in a moment Tom was quite at his ease.

"What did you think of 'King John?'" he asked Margaret.

"It was splendid; and a theatre is a wonderful place. How can people call it wicked?"

"Well, they don't," he laughed, "unless they are idiots, then they do, perhaps," at which she laughed too, and thought of Hannah. "I expect the scenes with Arthur gave you a few bad moments, didn't they?" he asked.

"She wept," her father said, evidently amused at the recollection.

"That's all right." Tom beamed with satisfaction. She was a nice girl, he thought, so of course she wept; she ought to weep at seeing that sort of thing for the first time. Then he turned to Mr. Vincent. "My father would be glad to think I had seen you at last," he said; "he often wondered why you never turned up."

"I have not turned up anywhere for more than five-and-twenty years," Mr.

Vincent answered. "If I had he would have seen me." He was looking at Tom with downright pleasure, at his six feet of growth and broad shoulders, at his frank face and clear blue eyes. This was the sort of boy that a man would like to have for a son, he thought; and then, after a moment's characteristic hesitation, he said: "Stringer told us that you went to Hindhead sometimes; perhaps one day you would get over and see us?"

"Should like it," said Tom, heartily.

"You have left Oxford, of course?"

"Oh yes, last year."

"Any ambitions?"

"Plenty. But I don't know whether they'll come to anything. I believe there'll be an unpaid under-secretaryship presently, and by-and-by I hope to get into the House. Politics are rather low down, you know, Miss Vincent, so they'll suit me. What did you think of Miss Hunstan? I saw her last night; she had fallen in love with you."

"Had she?" Margaret exclaimed, joyfully. "I'm so glad. I love her, though I only saw her for a moment."

"I'll tell her so. Every one does. My mother was devoted to her; that's one reason why I am. She's great fun, too, though, of course, she's getting on a bit," he added, with the splendid insolence of youth.

"There's something more at the back of this visit," and he looked at Mr.

Vincent. "I have been wondering if you are really going to-day?"

"By the 2.50 from Waterloo. We can't stay any longer."

"Well--I know this is daring; but couldn't you both come and lunch with me? I have my father's little house in Stratton Street, and should like to think you had been there. It would be very good of you."

Mr. Vincent shook his head. "No time."

"You'll have to lunch somewhere," Tom pleaded.

"Yes, but I must go to my lawyer's almost immediately, and one or two other places, and don't quite know how much time they'll take up."

"Are you going alone?"

"Yes."

"Then look here," Tom exclaimed, delighted at his own audacity, "if you are going to lawyers and people, couldn't I take Miss Vincent round and show her something? Picture-galleries, Tower of London, British Museum, Houses of Parliament, top of the Monument--that kind of thing, you know.

We'd take a hansom, and put half London into a couple of hours."

"Could I, father--could I?" she asked, eagerly.

Mr. Vincent looked from one to the other. They were boy and girl, he thought--Tom was twenty-two and Margaret eighteen, a couple of wild children, and before either of them was born their fathers had been old friends. Why shouldn't they go out together?

"It's very kind of you," he said, "and it would prevent her from spending a dull morning."

"It sha'n't be dull if I can help it," Tom answered, triumphantly.

"I may really go?" Margaret cried and kissed her father. "Oh, father, you are a dear."

She was a dear, too, Tom thought, and so was the old man, as he described Mr. Vincent in his thoughts.

The "old man" had an idea of his own. "Bring Margaret back here and lunch with us," he said; "there might be just time enough for that, and we will go and see you on another occasion."

"Good--good!" And Margaret presently found out that this was his favorite expression. "It shall be as you say. Now, Miss Vincent, there's hard work before us." Five minutes later Mr. Vincent watched them start.

They waved their hands to him from the hansom, and he turned away with a smile.

"The real thing to do," Tom told Margaret, was to see the great green s.p.a.ces in the midst of a wonderful city, and the chestnuts which in another month would be in bloom in Hyde Park, and the Round Pond and the Serpentine. "But as, after all," he went on, "you probably have trees and ponds at Chidhurst, we'll begin by going to St. Paul's. I'm afraid, seeing the limited time at our disposal, that the Tower and the Monument must be left alone." A brilliant thought struck him as they were driving back down the Strand to the Houses of Parliament. "We'll take Miss Hunstan a stack of flowers from Covent Garden--you must see Covent Garden, you know. Hi! cabby, turn up here--Covent Garden; we want to get some flowers."

"Oh, but I've brought no money with me."

"I have--heaps," he laughed, delighted at her innocence. "I had an idea we might do something, you know. Now then, here we are. You must jump out, if you don't mind."

They walked up and down the centre arcade, looking in at the shops, as happy and as guileless as Adam and Eve in the first garden when the world was all their own. They chose a stack of flowers, as Tom called it; he filled Margaret's arms with them just for the pleasure of looking at her.