hief consideration, and came
before everything else?"

"Of course!" he cried loudly. "Why, of course! What else could you
expect?"

I waved my thick dogskin gloves.

"Oh, Mr Maplestone, what is the use of arguing? It all comes back to
the one thing. If she loved you the other things would adjust
themselves. Without love, without sympathy, all would go wrong."

"There is sympathy. She may not realise it, perhaps, but if she thinks,
if you ask her to think, she must acknowledge that, in spite of small
surface disagreements, our real selves have drawn together, closer and
closer. Ask her if she feels to me as she does towards other men? If
there seems no difference between us? I know she does not love
me--_yet_; but if she gave me my chance, I could make her. No, she
would not need to be made. You can at least tell her that."

Mr Hallett's words sounded warningly in my ears. I hesitated, weakly
compromised.

"Yes--I might go so far. She shall hear what you say, and judge for
herself. And now we have really talked enough. Suppose we hear your
bird for a change?"

An hour later we drove to Fuller's and indulged in tea. It was
curiously enough the sight of one of the well-known angel cakes which
recalled Delphine Merrivale to my memory, for she had shown a child-like
appreciation of these dainties when they had appeared on our tea-table
at "Pastimes". Poor little Delphine! I felt a pang of compunction when
I remembered what store she had set on my friendship, and how little,
how very little, I had concerned myself about her during the last
months! With due caution I proceeded to seek information.

"I hope the tenants at `Pastimes' are well, and the Vicar and his wife--
that pretty little `Delphine' of whom Evelyn is so fond?"

"The Vicar is not well; been ailing all autumn, but Delphine is going
strong. Quite launched out this autumn. Become quite a leader of
fashion in our small world."

I felt another pang--of foreboding this time, and said sharply:--

"How very unsuitable! Are you speaking figuratively, Mr Maplestone?
Surely a clergyman's wife--"

"Clergymen's wives differ, Miss Harding, as greatly as the wives of
other members of society. They are not turned out by a machine, and
this particular one is very young, and not particularly wise."

"Apparently not. In what way has she `launched out'?"

"Oh-oh--" he vaguely waved his hands.

"Smart clothes, you know. Lots of 'em. Dinn