egin to believe in them myself.'

But Mrs. Crowley, though she appeared a light-hearted and thoughtless
little person, had much common sense; and when their party was ended and
she was giving Dick a lift in her carriage, she showed that,
notwithstanding her incessant chatter, her eyes throughout the evening
had been well occupied.

'Did you owe Bobbie a grudge that you asked him to supper?' she asked
suddenly.

'Good heavens, no. Why?'

'I hope Fleming won't be such a donkey as you are when he's your age.'

'I'm sure Amelia will be much more polite than you to the amiable,
middle-aged gentleman who has the good fortune to be her husband.'

'You might have noticed that the poor boy was eating his heart out with
jealousy and mortification, and Lucy was too much absorbed in Alec to
pay the very smallest attention to him.'

'What are you talking about?'

Mrs. Crowley gave him a glance of amused disdain.

'Haven't you noticed that Lucy is desperately in love with Mr.
MacKenzie, and it doesn't move her in the least that poor Bobbie has
fetched and carried for her for ten years, done everything she deigned
to ask, and been generally nice and devoted and charming?'

'You amaze me,' said Dick. 'It never struck me that Lucy was the kind of
girl to fall in love with anyone. Poor thing. I'm so sorry.'

'Why?'

'Because Alec wouldn't dream of marrying. He's not that sort of man.'

'Nonsense. Every man is a marrying man if a woman really makes up her
mind to it.'

'Don't say that. You terrify me.'

'You need not be in the least alarmed,' answered Mrs. Crowley, coolly,
'because I shall refuse you.'

'It's very kind of you to reassure me,' he answered, smiling. 'But all
the same I don't think I'll risk a proposal.'

'My dear friend, your only safety is in immediate flight.'

'Why?'

'It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence that you've been on the
verge of proposing to me for the last four years.'

'Nothing will induce me to be false to Amelia.'

'I don't believe that Amelia really loves you.'

'I never said she did; but I'm sure she's quite willing to marry me.'

'I think that's detestably vain.'

'Not at all. However old, ugly, and generally undesirable a man is,
he'll find a heap of charming girls who are willing to marry him.
Marriage is still the only decent means of livelihood for a really nice
woman.'

'Don't let's talk about Amelia; let's talk about me,' said Mrs. Crowley.

'I don't think