Daphne Floyd--and the thought of Daphne Floyd--had set his pulses hammering; they challenged in him the aggressive, self-assertive, masculine force.

The history of the preceding three weeks was far from simple.

He had first paid a determined court to her, conducting it in an orthodox, English, conspicuous way.

His mother, and her necessities--his own also--imposed it on him; and he flung himself into it, setting his teeth.

Then, to his astonishment, one may almost say to his disconcerting, he found the prey all at once, and, as it were, without a struggle, fluttering to his lure, and practically within his grasp.