“What!  Hugh and Edith Thornton?” She laughed again, a wonderfully musical, rippling laugh, the attorney thought.  “Oh, there is no more romance there than there is in that marble,” and she pointed to a beautiful Cupid and Psyche embracing each other in the centre of a mass of brilliant geraniums and coleas.  “They have been engaged ever since their days of long dresses and highchairs, — another of Ralph Mainwaring’s schemes!  You know Edith is Hugh’s cousin, an only child, and her father is immensely rich!  Oh, no; if I ever have a romance of my own, it must spring right up spontaneously, and grow in spite of all opposition.  Not one of the sort that has been fostered in a hot-house until its life is nearly stifled out of it.”

Mr. Whitney glanced in admiration at the fair English face beside him glowing with physical and intellectual beauty.  Then a moment later, as they passed down the long hall in response to the summons to dinner, and he caught a glimpse, in one of the mirrors, of a tolerably good-looking, professional gentleman of nearly forty, he wondered why he suddenly felt so much older than ever before.

Miss Carleton was seated beside him at dinner, while nearly opposite was Harry Scott, conversing with young Mainwaring.  He was quietly but elegantly dressed, and his fine physique and noble bearing, as well as the striking beauty of his dark face, seemed more marked than usual.  Mr. Whitney watched the young secretary narrowly.  Something in the play of his features seemed half familiar, and yet gave him a strange sense of pain, but why, he could not determine.

“Mr. Whitney,” said Miss Carleton, in a low tone, “did you ever observe a resemblance at times between Mr. Scott and your friend, Mr. Hugh Mainwaring?”

The attorney looked up in surprise.  “Why, no, Miss Carleton, I would not think a resemblance possible.  Mr. Scott is much darker and his features are altogether different.”

“Oh, I did not refer to any resemblance of feature or complexion, but his manner, and sometimes his expression, strikes me as very similar.  I suppose because he was associated with him so much, you know.”

Mr. Whitney’s eyes again wandered to the face of the secretary.  He started involuntarily.  “By George!” he ejaculated, mentally, “Hugh Mainwaring, as sure as I live!  Not a feature like him, but the same expression.  What does it mean?  Can it be simply from association?”

In a state of great bewilderment he endeavored still to entertain Miss Carleton, though it is to be feared she found him rather absent-minded.  He was passing out of the dining-room in a brown study when some one touched his arm.  He turned and saw Merrick.

“When you are at liberty, come out to the grove,” the latter said, briefly, and was gone before the attorney could more than bow in reply.

CHAPTER XIII

THEORIES, WISE AND OTHERWISE