to inspire confidence.  Yet he talked agreeably, if oddly; his incomplete sentences were full of good feeling; above all, he evidently meant to be frank, put his poverty in the baldest aspect, set forth his hopes with extreme moderation.  “We seem to suit each other,” was his quiet remark, with a glance at Olga; and Mrs. Hannaford could not doubt that he meant well.  But what a match!  Scarcely had he gone, when the mother began her dissuasions, and from that moment there was misery.

For Olga, Mrs. Hannaford had always been ambitious.  The girl was clever, warm-hearted, and in her way handsome.  But for the disastrous father, she would have had every chance of marrying “well.”  Mrs. Hannaford was not a worldly woman, and all her secret inclinations were to romance, but it is hard for a mother to dissociate the thought of marriage from that of wealth and respectability.  Mr. Kite, well-meaning as he might be, would never do.

To-day there was truce.  They talked much of Piers Otway, and in the afternoon, as had been arranged by letter, both went to the railway station, to meet the train by which it was hoped he would come—­ Piers arrived.

“How much improved!” was the thought of both.  He was larger, manlier, and though still of pale complexion had no longer the bloodless look of years ago.  Walking, he bore himself well; he was self-possessed in manner, courteous in not quite the English way; brief, at first, in his sentences, but his face lit with cordiality.  On the way to the ladies’ lodgings, he stole frequent glances at one and the other; plainly he saw change in them, and perhaps not for the better.

Mrs, Hannaford kept mentally comparing him with the scarecrow Kite.  A tremor of speculation took hold upon her; a flush was on her cheeks, she talked nervously, laughed much.

Nothing was to be said about the flight from home; they were at Epsom for a change of air.  But Mrs. Hannaford could not keep silence concerning her good fortune; she had revealed it in a few nervous words, before they reached the house.

“You will live in London?” asked Otway.

“That isn’t settled.  It would be nice to go abroad again.  We liked Geneva.”

“I must tell you about a Swiss friend of mine,” Piers resumed.  “A man you would like; the best, jolliest, most amusing fellow I ever met; his name is Moncharmont.  He is in business at Odessa.  There was talk of his coming to England with me, but we put it off; another time.  He’s a man who does me good; but for him, I shouldn’t have held on.”

“Then you don’t like it, after all?” asked Mrs. Hannaford.

“Like it?  No.  But I have stuck to it—­partly for very shame, as you know.  I’ve stuck to it hard, and it’s getting too late to think of anything else.  I have plans; I’ll tell you.”

These plans were laid open when tea had been served in the little sitting-room.  Piers had it in mind to start an independent business, together with his friend Moncharmont; one of them to live in Russia, one in London.