me who knows
how to appreciate her as she deserves, who understands her nature, who
is ready to devote his life to fulfilling her deepest needs."

Miss Cronin suddenly looked intelligent and at the same time like a
dragon. Never before had Braybrooke seen such an expression upon her
face, such a stiffening of dignity to her ample figure. She sat straight
up, looked him full in the face, and observed:

"I understand your meaning, Mr. Braybrooke. You wish to marry Beryl.
Well, you must forgive me for saying that I think you are much too old
for her."

Braybrooke had not blushed for probably at least forty years, but
he blushed scarlet now, and seized his beard with a hand that looked
thoroughly unstrung.

"My dear Miss Cronin!" he said, in a voice which was almost hoarse with
protest. "You absolutely misunderstood me. It is much too la--I mean
that I have no intention whatever of changing my condition. No, no!
Let us talk of something else. So you are reading '_Le Disciple_'" (he
picked it up). "A very striking book! I always think it one of Bourget's
very best."

He poured forth an energetic cataract of words in praise of Miss
Cronin's favourite author, and presently got away without any further
quite definite misunderstanding. But when he was out in the corridor on
his way to the lift he indulged himself in a very unwonted expression of
acrimonious condemnation.

"Damn these red-headed old women!" he muttered in his beard. "There's
no doing anything with them! The idea of my going to her to propose for
Miss Van Tuyn! What next, I wonder?"

When he was out in Brook Street he hesitated for a moment, then took out
his watch and looked at it. Half-past three! He thought of the Wallace
Collection. It seemed to draw him strangely just then. He put his watch
back and walked towards Manchester Square.

He had gained the Square and was about to enter the enclosure before
Hertford House by the gateway on the left, when he saw Miss Van Tuyn
come out by the gateway on the right, and walk slowly towards Oxford
Street in deep conversation with a small horsey-looking man, whose face
he could not see, but whose back and legs, and whose dress and headgear,
strongly suggested to him the ring at Newmarket and the Paddock at
Ascot.

Braybrooke hesitated. The attraction of the Wallace Collection no longer
drew him. Besides, it was getting late. On the other hand, he scarcely
liked to interrupt an earnest tete-a-tete. If it had n