"She's pretty well," replied May, "but you had better not go up and see her."

"No, darling, I won't go if you say not."

His eyes then fell uncertainly upon Mrs. Dagon, and he added, thickly,

"That's only Aunt Dagon. How do, Aunt Dagon?"

He smiled at her and at May, and continued,

"I don't mind Aunt Dagon. Do you mind her, May?"

"What do you want, Abel?" asked May, with the old expression sliding into her eyes that used to be there when she sat alone--a fairy princess in her tower, and thought of many things.

Abel had seated himself upon the sofa, with his hat still on his head.

There was perhaps something in May's tone that alarmed him, for he began to shed tears.

"Oh! May, don't you love your poor Abel?"

She looked at him without speaking. At length she said, "Where have you been?"

"I've been to General Belch's," he sobbed, in reply; "and I don't mind Aunt Dagon, if you don't."

"What do you mean by that, you silly fool?" asked Mrs. Dagon, sharply.

Abel stopped and looked half angry, for a moment, but immediately fell into the old strain.

"I mean I'd just as lieve say it before her."

"Then say it," said May.

"Well, May, darling, couldn't you now just coax Gabriel--good fellow, Gabriel--used to know him and love him at school--couldn't you coax him to get Uncle Lawrence to do something?"

May shook her head. Abel began to snivel.

"I don't mean for the house. D----n it, that's gone to smash. I mean for myself. May, for your poor brother Abel. You might just try."

He lay back and looked at her ruefully.

"Aunt Dagon," she said, quietly, "we had better go out of the room. Abel, don't you come up stairs while you are in this state. I know all that Uncle Lawrence has done for father and you, and he will do nothing more.

Do you expect him to pay your gambling debts?" she asked, indignantly.

Abel raised himself fiercely, while the bad blackness filled his eyes.

"D----d old hunks!" he shouted.

But nobody heard. Mrs. Dagon and May Newt had closed the door, and Abel was left alone.

"It's no use," he said, moodily and aloud, but still thickly. "I can't help it. I shall have to do just as Belch wishes. But he must help me. If he expects me to serve him, he must serve me. He says he can--buy off--Bodley--and then--why, then--devil take it!" he said, vacantly, with heavy eyes, "then--then--oh yes!" He smiled a maudlin smile. "Oh yes! I shall be a great--a great--great--man--I'll be--rep--rep--sentive--ofs--ofs--dear pe--pe."

His head fell like a lump upon the cushion of the sofa, and he breathed heavily, until the solemn, dark, formal parlor smelled like a bar-room.

CHAPTER LXIII.

ENDYMION.

Lawrence Newt had told Aunt Martha that he preferred to hear from a young woman's own lips that she loved him. Was he suspicious of the truth of Aunt Martha's assertion?

When the Burt will was read, and Fanny Dinks had hissed her envy and chagrin, she had done more than she would willingly have done: she had said that all the world knew he was in love with Hope Wayne. If all the world knew it, then surely Amy Waring did; "and if she did, was it so strange," he thought, "that she should have said what she did to me?"

He thought often of these things. But one of the days when he sat in his office, and the junior partner was engaged in writing the letters which formerly Lawrence wrote, the question slid into his mind as brightly, but as softly and benignantly, as daylight into the sky.

"Does it follow that she does not love me? If she did love me, but thought that I loved Hope Wayne, would she not hide it from me in every way--not only to save her own pride, but in order not to give me pain?"

So secret and reticent was he, that as he thought this he was nervously anxious lest the junior partner should happen to look up and read it all in his eyes.

Lawrence Newt rose and stood at the window, with his back to Gabriel, for his thoughts grew many and strange.

As he came down that morning he had stopped at Hope Wayne's, and they had talked for a long time. Gabriel had told his partner of his visit to Mrs.

Fanny Dinks, and Lawrence had mentioned it to Hope Wayne. The young woman listened intently.

"You don't think I ought to increase the allowance?" she asked.

"Why should you?" he replied. "Alfred's father still allows him the six hundred, and Alfred has promised solemnly that he will never mention to his wife the thousand you allow him. I don't think he will, because he is afraid she would stop it in some way. As it is, she knows nothing more than that six hundred dollars seems to go a very great way. Your income is large; but I think a thousand dollars for the support of two utterly useless people is quite as much as you are called upon to pay, although one of them is your cousin, and the other my niece."

They went on to talk of many things. In all she showed the same calm candor and tenderness. In all he showed the same humorous quaintness and good sense. Lawrence Newt observed that these interviews were becoming longer and longer, although the affairs to arrange really became fewer.

He could not discover that there was any particular reason for it; and yet he became uncomfortable in the degree that he was conscious of it.

When the Round Table met, it was evident from the conversation between Hope Wayne and Lawrence Newt that he was very often at her house; and sometimes, whenever they all appeared to be conscious that each one was thinking of that fact, the cloud of constraint settled more heavily, but just as impalpably as before, over the little circle. It was not removed by the conviction which Amy Waring and Arthur Merlin entertained, that at all such times Hope Wayne was trying not to show that she was peculiarly excited by this consciousness.

And she was excited by it. She knew that the interviews were longer and longer, and that there was less reason than ever for any interviews whatsoever. But when Lawrence Newt was talking to her--when he was looking at her--when he was moving about the room--she was happier than she had ever been--happier than she had supposed she could ever be. When he went, that day was done. Nor did another dawn until he came again.

Perhaps Hope Wayne understood the meaning of that mysterious constraint which now so often enveloped the Round Table.

As for Arthur Merlin, the poor fellow did what all poor fellows do. So long as it was uncertain whether she loved him or not, he was willing to say nothing. But when he was perfectly sure that there was no hope for him, he resolved to speak.

In vain his Aunt Winnifred had tried to cheer him. Ever since the morning when he had told her in his studio the lovely legend of Latmos he could not persuade himself that he had not unwittingly told his own story. Aunt Winnifred showered the choicest tracts about his room. She said with a sigh that she was sure he had experienced no change of heart; and Arthur replied, with a melancholy smile, "Not the slightest."

The kind old lady was sorely puzzled. It did not occur to her that her Arthur could be the victim of an unfortunate attachment, like the love-lorn heroes of whom she had read in the evil days when she read novels. It did not occur to her, because she could as easily have supposed a rose-tree to resist June as any woman her splendid Arthur.

If some gossip to whom she sighed and shook her head, and wondered what could possibly ail Arthur--who still ate his dinner heartily, and had as many orders for portraits as he cared to fulfill--suggested that there was a woman in the case, good Aunt Winnifred smiled bland incredulity.

"Dear Mrs. Toxer, I should like to see that woman!"

Then she plied her knitting-needles nimbly, sighed, scratched her head with a needle, counted her stitches, and said,