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When Paul got down into the dining-roo by the side of the table ready to take the cover off the soup She was radiant with s dinner, but Paul felt sure that everything was not ith her Though she s forced in hertill the man should have left the room to speak in a different strain And so it was As soon as the last lingering dish had been removed, and when the door was finally shut behind the retreating waiter, she asked the question which no doubt had been on her mind since she had walked across the strand to the hotel 'Your friend was hardly civil; was he, Paul?'

'Do you mean that he should have come in? I have no doubt it was true that he had dined'

'I am quite indifferent about his dinner,--but there are tays of declining as there are of accepting I suppose he is on very intimate terms with you?'

'Oh, yes'

'Then his want of courtesy was the more evidently intended for me In point of fact he disapproves of ue did not feel himself called upon to make any immediate answer 'I can well understand that it should be so An intimate friend may like or dislike the friend of his friend, without offence But unless there be strong reason he is bound to be civil to his friend's friend, when accident brings theether You have told entleman'

'So he is'

'Then why didn't he behave as such?' and Mrs Hurtle again smiled 'Did not you yourself feel that you were rebuked for co here with me, when he expressed surprise at your journey? Has he authority over you?'

'Of course he has not What authority could he have?'

'Nay, I do not know Hemen perhaps are not their own masters till they are past thirty I should have said that he was your guardian, and that he intended to rebuke you for being in bad coone'

This was so true that Montague did not kno to deny it Nor was he sure that it would be well that he should deny it The time must come, and why not noell as at any future moment? He had to make her understand that he could not join his lot with her,--chiefly indeed because his heart was elsewhere, a reason on which he could hardly insist because she could allege that she had a prior right to his heart;--but also because her antecedents had been such as to cause all his friends to warn hie for the battle 'It was nearly that,' he said