These moments of respite from the dancing were peaceful, Diana thought, as Jim drew a chair forward and seated himself beside her. She was strangely unsettled to-night. Her head ached slightly, it was true, but she was conscious that ever since Lady Elizabeth\'s remark concerning Jim and Sadie Jones, a curious irritation had possessed her. She didn\'t stop to reason it out, but plunged at once into the heart of the matter.

"I congratulate you, Jim."

"On what?"

"Your brilliant prospects."

"We\'ve never met—shouldn\'t know them if I saw them."

So Diana knew too of the scheme to secure a fortune for the house of Kerhill. Jim was curious to learn her point of view. There was a new touch of bitterness in Diana\'s voice that puzzled him.

"Don\'t let them beat you down in the price, Jim. If you sell your sweet young life, let it be at a good round figure, for our sakes." The scornful mirth of her last words was unmistakable.

"I shall always be a joke to you, Diana."

"Well, if our whole social fabric isn\'t a joke," Di interrupted, "pray, what is it?"

"I don\'t belong to the social fabric. I\'m an outsider."

Again she feverishly interrupted.

"Oh, you can\'t escape. You are up on the block. Look your best, and try to bring a fancy price. We have always sold our women, and now we have taken to selling our men."

For a moment he wondered if she, too, approved of the fortune hunt.

"Are you in the Chichester Jones conspiracy, too?" he asked.

"Certainly," the answer came, but with it a look that plainly contradicted the words. She was in wild spirits, he could see; he let her run on. "You are a monster of selfish obstinacy, Jim. Your inability to grasp your own best interests and ours—is a proof of a feeble intellect—and a wicked heart."

Gayly he entered into her mood. "Well, Diana," he said, "I\'m an amiable brute. If you insist upon it, perhaps—"

"Good," she cut in quickly as she jumped up on the seat and clung to an overhanging bough. "Let me be the auctioneer; I\'ll get you a good price." Blithely assuming the voice and manner of a professional auctioneer, she began: "Step up, ladies—step up, ladies. Please examine this first-class specimen of the British aristocracy. He is kind and gentle, sound in mind and limb; will travel well in double harness—has blue ribbons and medals, and a pedigree longer than your purses. He\'s for sale; how much am I bid—"

Jim, who laughingly followed her words, interrupted in mock seriousness:

"One moment before you knock me down. Have you considered the existence of the American Peril? These Yankees are driving the English girls out of the home market. I believe in protection for the home product by an ad valorem tax on the raw material and exclusion for the finished product—in the shape of widows. I\'m a patriot. God bless our English commerce—homes, I mean."

Jim\'s burst of nonsense was finished by a "Hear, hear" from Diana. Then their laughter rang out merrily. Diana clung to the swaying branch; Jim, below her, like Henry, noticed the ethereal quality of her beauty that night. She put out her hands to him.

"Please," she said, and he helped her down. Their light-heartedness seemed to desert them. Mechanically he kept her hand in his, held spellbound by her gracious charm. Diana withdrew her hand as she said, "Jim, you\'re a boy and you\'ll never grow up." Then, because she wished him to reassure her of his distaste for the proposed marriage, she said, "Sadie Jones is the chance of a lifetime and you\'ll miss it."

Jim only half heard her words. He was conscious of a strange dread of remaining longer alone with her.

"How do you know I will?" he said.

All her tender faith and belief in him was in her answer: "Oh, Jim, I know you."

Did she though? Did he know himself? What was this wild new feeling of fear, of sweet, elusive pain? His words gave no sign of the tumult of his thoughts.

"Do you? Well, you couldn\'t do me a greater service than to make me know myself. Fire at will."

Diana, too, was conscious of a strange undercurrent to their lighter talk. She was aware of Jim\'s searching glances, but, like him, she gave no sign of the vague uneasiness that would not be stilled.

"Shall I, really?" she questioned.

Jim nodded.

"Remember, you\'ve brought it on yourself." She seated herself close to the sundial, and half leaned against it. Jim was facing her. "Well, to begin with, you will never wholly succeed in life."

"Dear me, I meant surgery, not butchery, Di."

She paid no heed to the interruption. "You are not spiritual enough to create your own world, and you are too idealistic to be happy in this frankly material world. You have temperament and sentiment; they are fatal in a practical age." She paused; there was no denial from Jim. As she waited for him to speak, her eyes rested on the decorations glittering on his coat. "Your breast is covered with medals for personal courage, but you could never be a great general."

He almost stopped her with a reminder of the days on the Northwestern Hills, but a certain truth in all that she said kept him silent. His memory went back to the hours in which he had fought—even at the sacrifice of himself—to save his men. He heard her say:

"You could never sink your point of view to the demands of necessary horrors. Confronted with the alternative of suffering, or causing suffering, you would suffer." She rose, and, as though peering into the future, said, "You are marked for the sacrifice."

Her face shone as though illumined by a clairvoyant power of spiritual insight. She seemed to have forgotten the present and stared straight ahead, trying to see into the heavy mists that enveloped the coming years. Jim made an effort to relax the nervous tension of the moment.

"What a rosy, alluring picture! A failure at everything I touch, eh? Have I one redeeming virtue?"

But although the voice that spoke was light with raillery he was possessed by an uncontrollable agitation. She stood with a haunted look of such intensity on her face that he became conscious only of an infinite desire to protect her. As he came close to her she was thrilled by the vibrating sympathy that drew them together, and raised her eyes to his. The strong, tender face of Jim, to which she had so often turned in her days of unspoken despair, gave her the comprehension and sympathy that were denied her by another. She thought of the expression of Sadie Jones\'s eyes as she sang:

    "Tout passé, tout lasse."

Diana knew that she had been sending her song out into the night as a message to Jim in the garden. She thought of the unacknowledged sense of comfort that Lady Elizabeth experienced when Jim came to visit them. Without him, what would the days be? She shuddered at the desolation it might mean to be without this reliant, forceful friend. As it all flashed through her mind, she said:

"You have one triumphant quality, Jim. Whether it will add to your sum of suffering or compensate............