“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.