The Heather-Moon

nd. They were waiting for Somerled, who had expressed a desire not to be met at the station; and listening for the teuf-teuf of motors along the distant road prevented Mrs. West fro

d that she should have praise, but he was convinced that it ought to be hers. If she had not thought of asking him to try his hand at helping her four years ago, when the incentive to live seemed gone, he might have been driven to put himself out of the way. It was to her, therefore, that he

can have happened to

s to be their hero, Claud the villain. Basil had been engag

though her voice was sweet, because it was never o

with pleasure,"

ed. "He's a man who knows exactly what he wants, and hates to

hands clasped behind her back and her head bent. He thought her extremely pretty, and wondered if Somerled thought so too. But he w

ked, as if he were questioning himself alou

bored to death with everything nearly. Only I-we-h

assured her loyally. "But-I wish you'd

er if I were twenty-five instead of-never mind! I don't want peopl

an you are, anyhow,"

orget, dear, I'm only just thirt

over twen

trust him not to advertise his advantage. He really was a dear! She hated herself for being jealous of him sometimes. There were things he could do, there were thoughts that came to him as easily as homing birds, which were with her only

l was going on, "are you in l-how muc

ds; like 'Do you take this man for better, for wor

ou don't need his money. We make as many thousands as we used

artnesses and pretty trivialities could never have carried them to the place where they now stood together. The worst part of her wanted Basil to think, wanted every one to think, that she was the important partner, that she wa

gth and for his indifference. Everything about him appeals to me-even his money; for making it in

y feel about him," Basil said ge

s here, after he'd got through his business in London," Aline went on, "it was like honey to hear him say that he didn't want to come if a

ng abou

e suspects

is there

or you're both men. If you d

shan't have an easy minute till you do-and that me

u never guessed, then, that I've been doing it all? I was

I heard him ask you. It

our publisher to write because we'd sold our last car and hadn't time to make up our minds about a new one, and we had no frien

u remind me of it. But it wasn't hinting, because you

sailed. And when I said we'd accept his invitation if he'

aid sh

eather in her cap; and Ian Somerled coming to visit us here is something she'll never get over as long as she lives. I marconied her an hour after he'd said that he would come to us after London, and we'd begin our motor

that what she di

more comfortable in the nursing home with the best attention th

y into his face, to see if he were making fun of her. Just then they were drawing near the open windows of the drawing-room, and the lamplight shone out so

p the sale of their books. Norman might have sat for Titian's Portrait of a Gentleman: and there were those who thought Mrs. West not unlike Lady Hamilton. Since the first expression of this opinion in print, she had changed the fashion of her hair, and at fancy-dress balls, of which she was fond, she generally appeared as the beautiful Emma. Certainly the cast of her features and the cutting of her lips faintly recalled those of Romney's ideal; but Mrs. West's pretty pale face had only two expressions: the one when she smiled-always the same delicate curving of the lips which lit no beam in the

hat was seen by others to be amusing. She talked constantly of a sense of humour, pitying those not blessed

t the dedication will be a

be for Mrs

ating it to Somerled, as he'll be ta

ow. I don't mean in his own eyes, but in the eyes of the world; so nothing we could do for him would really confer an honour. And the reason

t think he'

to like us because we didn't fuss over him, or seem to go out of our way to please him. That's

rl!" Norman

call me 'poor?' Do you think I shan't s

am," her brother answered evasiv

s, too. You kno

ot when they're just

shipboard. I was telling him about Jim dying in India and leaving me alone there, almost a girl; and how there was no money; and how I took up writing and made a success. Then from that we drifted into talk about succes

e had retired too far within the rose-bower of happy

s are apparently quite different from other peasants. You'll have to study up the differences and make lots of notes for the book. I'm no good at anything with dialect, or character sort of parts. You wouldn't think now, though, that Ian Somerled had ever been a peasant would you? He talked a lot about his father and mother-evidently he adored them. He said they'd be miracles anywhere out of Scotland, but there were many like them there. According to him there was nothing they hadn't read or couldn't quote by the yard, from Burns and Scott back to Shakespeare. That was the way he was brought up, and instead of wanting him to go on crofting like themselves, they were enchanted because he drew pictures on their unpainted doors and their whitewashed walls. They saved all their pennies to have h

but Scottish history, Scottish fiction, and Scottish poetry, in order to get himself in the right frame of

island. Ian didn't lose courage, though; and soon after the great snub he contrived to work his way somehow to Edinburgh. He wouldn't take the money his father and mother had saved up for him, because they were old and had been ill, and needed it themselves. But he did all kinds of queer jobs, and at last walked into the studio of a celebrated artist, saying he wanted to pay for some lessons. At first the man only laughed, but when he saw Ian's drawings, he was interested at once. He gave him lessons for nothing, and boasted of his protégé to other artists. It seems that a talent for both portraiture and architecture is very rare. When Ian was sixteen he won a big prize for the design of an important building which a lot of prominent architects had been trying for. Presently it came out that he was only a boy, a boy who could do wonderful portraits, too, and everybody began taking notice of him and writing

sentencing himself to perpet

etic faith in his own powers of success. And he was r

gant sort of monuments for both his parents, which Ian designed himself. But he hadn't been two months in New York when he won a still bigger prize, which came just as he was on the point of starving! A handful of oatmeal and an apple a day I should call starvation, but he says it was grand for his health. In six years, at twenty-four, he was not only the greatest portrait-painter in America, but one of the most successful architects, an extraordinary combination which has made him unique in modern times. And before he was twenty-eight came that big 'coup' of his, which he calls a 'mere accident that might have happened to any fool'-the buying of a site for a new town in Nevada, where he meant to build up a little city of beautiful houses, and finding a silver mine. Of course, it wasn't an 'accident.' It was the spirit of prophecy in him which has always carried him on to success-that, and his grit and daring and enterprise and general cleverness. Oh, Basil, if you could have heard him telling me these things that last night on the Olympic-leaning back in his deck-chair, smoking cigarette after cigarette (I was smoking too. I h

elf scarce and leave yo

ctually stopping at the gate. There'll be p

ained. Was it for his sister, because she was managing her love affairs with a famous man in this energetic, businesslike way, and jumping eagerly at conclusions? Or was it

. He would rather be disappointed in himself than

In old days, when Aline had written alone, she had always chosen some subject that loomed large in public interest at the moment, whether she herself cared about it or not, hoping to "come in on the wave." Just because she had not really cared her scheme of work had not given her success. So it had been with the idea of their first book written together. Aline had wanted to plan out something to do with motoring, about which every one was k

work for itself, and she did not. That the light of his life would be gone without it, whereas she would be glad to stop working and be idle as the admired wife of a celebrity and a millionair

ar now!" he

oing out of the garage. It's different from any others that pass along this

rying to laugh, as he turned and m

nice of him, and like him, too, for Basil was as gallant and chivalrous to his si

d the gate. The