en minutes." The presence of
servants must, in the long run, create a great deal of good manners.

When Loft was out of the room Octon dropped his disguise. He brought his
big hand down on the table with a slap, saying, "There's an end of it!"

"Why shouldn't she build an Institute? If you take a lease for only
seven years, how are you aggrieved by getting notice to quit at the end
of the term?"

"Don't argue round the fringe of things. Don't be a humbug," he
admonished me, scornfully enough, yet for once, as I fancied, with a
touch of gentleness and liking. "You've damned sharp eyes, and I've
something else to do than take the trouble to blind them."

"No extraordinary acuteness of vision is necessary," I ventured to
remark.

He rose from his chair with a heavy sigh, leaving his coffee and brandy
untouched. I felt inclined to tell him that in all likelihood he was
taking the matter too seriously: he was assuming finality--a difficult
thing to assume when Jenny was in the case. He came to me and laid his
hand on my shoulder. "They manage 'em better in Africa," he said with a
sardonic grin. "Of course I'd no business to say that to her--but hadn't
she been trying to draw me all the time? She does it--then she makes a
shindy!"

"I'll see you a bit on your way," I said. He accepted my offer by
slipping his hand under my arm. I opened the door for us to pass out.
There stood Chat on the threshold. Octon regarded her with an
ill-subdued impatience. Chat was fluttering still.

"Oh, Mr. Octon, she's--she's so angry! Might I--oh, might I take a
message to her room? She's gone upstairs and forbidden me to follow."

"Thank you, but there's no message to take."

"If you would just say something----!"

"There's no message to take." Again his tone was not rough--it was
moody, almost absent: but, as he left Chat behind in her useless
agitation, he leaned on my arm very heavily. Though I counted his whole
great body as for me less than her little finger, yet a subtle male
freemasonry stirred in me. He had behaved very badly--for a man should
bear a pretty woman's pin-pricks--yet he was hard hit; all against him
as I was, I knew that he was hard hit. Moreover, he had summed up
Jenny's procedure pretty accurately.

We put on our coats--it was now September--undid the big door, and went
out, down the steps, into a clear frosty night. We had walked many yards
along the drive before he spoke. At last he said, very quietly--