NEVER FORGOTTEN.

PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER XVI. THE VIEW OF A MAN OF THE WORLD.

"WHAT! Fermor?—" Repeated after a
second pause; the speaker's face halting the
while between his habitual laugh and lagging
frown. "—And Violet?" Violet had moved a
little apart on the sofa; but Fermor, who
always looked on these little crises as so many
openings for mental training, determined that
there should be no awkwardness. Why, indeed,
should there be? A man of the world was
present.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Hanbury," he said.
"The first evening I have got out. And my first
visit has been to the charitable friends who took
me in, after my stupid blundering accident."

Hanbury was glowing all over, and looking
excitedly from one to the other of the two faces.
But the last words of Fermor recalled to him
certain obligations, as indeed their speaker had
artfully intended they should, and checked some
unmeaning and perhaps wild speech he was about
to make.

"They are waiting for you," he said, bluntly
and even roughly, "down at the beach. Shall I
tell them that you can't come?"

"Yes, yes," she said, timorously. "I can't go
to-night; I have a headache. I don't care to
walk."

Fermor rose to go. "It is too late even for me.
I laugh at myself, but am obliged, in spite of
myself, to be an invalid, and take all manner of
ridiculous precautions about my health. We
can go part of the way together. Miss Manuel
and I have been improving each other. I have
been teaching her some of my morbid
philosophy."

The two went out together, and so this rather
extraordinary interview ended. At the door,
Hanbury stopped abruptly, and, in a gauche,
almost rough tone, said, "I am going this way.
Very sorry, but I have an appointment."

"Good gracious!" said Fermor, gaily, "keep
it. Don't think of it. I shall get home very
well; not quite an old man yet."

"Such a boor!" he thought to himself, "a
true navvy!" And he walked along, smiling
to himself, and thinking almost with delight of
his "consummate acting" in the little piece of
that evening. "Charming little creature she is!"
he said, half aloud. "There is really something
bewitching about her. If that stupid lout had
not come in, she would have told me everything
about herself. I knew what she was coming to."
Then he thought perhaps it was as well the lout
had come in, for that confidence might have led
on to "a business." "I believe I could wind
her round my finger," thought Mr. Fermor, as
he entered his room. "Confiding little angel!"

These speculations entertained him a great
part of the evening. As usual, he got out his
little theatre, lit up his castle in Spain, and put
himself down walking among the grounds with
the little Spanish girl upon his arm. Good old
family, he dared to say. Money, he dared to say
also. After all, a man must settle down some
time or other. Then changing the scene to an
inner room in the castle in Spain, he saw himself
as lecturer, preacher, teacher, moulding this soft
mind to his own pattern—a delightful occupation.
So he worked the idea through a whole
little play, and then—thinking of the earthly
creatures down at the barracks, whose ideas were
centred in a pipe—contrasted his own intellectual
day's labour with theirs, and thought of
going to bed.

They came to tell him there was a gentleman
below who wished to see him—Mr. Hanbury.
Fermor did not relish this visit. "Really, at this
hour," he said. "Come, I suppose, repentant.
These boors are always as ready to humble
themselves as well as to offend. Show him up."

Hanbury walked in heavily—stalked is the
word—but had scarcely the bearing of a
penitent.

"I am sorry," he said, "to come in on you at
such an hour, but the fact is, I could not have
slept without seeing you. A great deal has
happened since I left you this evening, and––"

Fermor, though he had shut up his theatre for
the night, threw open the doors again with
alacrity. The excited "lout" would afford him
a little afterpiece before going to bed.

"Sit down, do," he said. "The hour is a
little unusual, and I will ask you not to stay
very long: an invalid, you know. Well, about
this horse, eh? You are coming to that?"

Hanbury sat down mechanically, and looked