``I am coming back,'' he said, ``and I will find that you have settled them for yourself.''
``Good-by,'' she said, in so low a tone that the people standing near them could not hear.``You haven't asked me for it, you know, but--I think I shall let you keep that picture.''
``Thank you,'' said Clay, smiling, ``I meant to.''
``You can keep it,'' she continued, turning back, ``because it is not my picture.It is a picture of a girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met.Good-night.''
Mr.Langham and Hope, his younger daughter, had been to the theatre.The performance had been one which delighted Miss Hope, and which satisfied her father because he loved to hear her laugh.Mr.Langham was the slave of his own good fortune.By instinct and education he was a man of leisure and culture, but the wealth he had inherited was like an unruly child that needed his constant watching, and in keeping it well in hand he had become a man of business, with time for nothing else.
Alice Langham, on her return from Mrs.Porter's dinner, found him in his study engaged with a game of solitaire, while Hope was kneeling on a chair beside him with her elbows on the table.