Pipe to a crowd, Tony, but musick dedicated to a
solitary shepherdess at the sight of whom your mouth
will be awry in a year's time is ill work for her."

" I doubt you're right," said Clare softly. " You are
compassionate to poor nymphs to-night, Charles.
Have you met a goddess? "

" Tony, I have."

" May you prosper! "

" Thank 'ee. I'll teU you more of her when I know
more myself."

They urged their horses to a trot and were silent for
a while. Then Clare asked Charles what he thought
of Vernon.
" Oh! a statue positively. I doubt the whole affair
was to him vastly low."

" Umph ! there was a permanent leer carved on his
lips. I dislike the fellow."

" Nay ! you're too stern in your judgments. He has
promised me an evening for Hazard."

Clare smiled. It was useless to remonstrate with a
man whom the thought of two dice transformed into



go THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT

a machine with glassy eyes and curiously sensitive
fingers.
So they rode silently.
Charles could see Phyllida in the moon-ienchanted
clouds, sometimes with the trim waist of a dice-box.
CHAPTER VII

SUNDAY MORNING

CUNDAY morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a
•^ day of rest. A stroke of organizing genius on the
part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues of
early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obliga-
tions of fashionable humanity to an hour which would
not interfere with the respect owed to the spirit.
