“Why didn’t you marry him?”

“He had not a cent in the world.  He was a poor young school-teacher, but of a very distinguished family.  However, mamma took fright, and whisked me away as if he had been a pestilence.”

“Oh, naturally!”

“And he was too much in love with me.  But for that I think I should not have given him up.  I was dreadfully cut up for a little while.  And he—­” She did not finish the sentence.

On this Mrs. Wentworth made no observation, though the expression about her mouth changed.

“He made a reputation afterwards.  I knew he would.  He was bound to succeed.  I believed in him even then.  He had ideals.  Why don’t men have ideals now?”

“Some of them do,” asserted Mrs. Wentworth.

“Yes; Norman has.  I mean unmarried men.  I heard he made a fortune, or was making one—­or something.”

“Oh!”

“He knew more than any one I ever saw—­and made you want to know.  All I ever read he set me to.  And he is awfully good-looking.  I had no idea he would be so good-looking.  But I tell you this:  no woman that ever saw him ever forgot him.”

“Is he married?”

“I don’t think so—­no.  If he had been I should have heard it.  He really believed in me.”

Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her with interest.

“Where is he staying?”

“I do not know.  I saw him through a shop-window.”

“What!  Did you not speak to him?”

“I did not get a chance.  When I came out of the shop he was gone.”

“That was sad.  It would have been quite romantic, would it not?  But, perhaps, after all, he did not make his fortune?” Mrs. Wentworth looked complacent.

“He did if he set his mind to it,” declared Mrs. Lancaster.

“How about Ferdy Wickersham?” The least little light of malevolence crept into Mrs. Wentworth’s eyes.

Mrs. Lancaster gave a shrug of impatience, and pushed a photograph on a small table farther away, as if it incommoded her.

“Oh, Ferdy Wickersham!  Ferdy Wickersham to that man is a heated room to the breath of hills and forests.”  She spoke with real warmth, and Mrs. Wentworth gazed at her curiously for a few seconds.

“Still, I rather fancy for a constancy you’d prefer the heated rooms to the coldness of the hills.  Your gowns would not look so well in the forest.”

It was a moment before Mrs. Lancaster’s face relaxed.

“I suppose I should,” she said slowly, with something very like a sigh.  “He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to do and made me wish to be something better than I was,” she added absently.

Mrs. Wentworth glanced at her somewhat impatiently, but she went on: 

“I was very romantic then; and you should have heard him read the ‘Idylls of the King.’  He had the most beautiful voice.  He made you live in Arthur’s court, because he lived there himself.”