arried three times
might just as well never have been married at all. Looks as though she'd
only squandered her money in rising to the nicety of a marriage-license.
I hope you don't mean to marry her, old chap, because she's not your
sort."

When Tabs went to the trouble of assuring these well-wishers that he did
not intend to marry her and that she was his sort, they slipped their
tongues into their cheeks and opened their eyes wide, "Oh, so that's the
way of it!"

Maisie reported to him similar experiences. "So you see how I'm
regarded, as though I were no better than I should be. And I'm young and
I've done nothing wrong. If it wasn't for your friendship, I should be
tempted----"

"But you have my friendship!" he assured her.

He tried to rise superior to this petty talk of scandal-mongers, but it
was not always possible when he remembered Terry.

VII

He met Terry as often as he could contrive, but he no longer forced
himself upon her. He could effect nothing so long as her infatuation for
Braithwaite lasted.

Now that Sir Tobias had lost faith in him as a lover, his opportunities
for meeting her became more rare. When Sir Tobias lost faith in any one,
he made no attempt to disguise it. In the case of Tabs, he let him know
it with a fine air of magnanimity, as though he were doing him a
kindness. His frankness took the form of communicating some new
disparaging criticism, astutely attributed to Lady Beddow, every time he
was paid a visit.

Having separated Tabs from Terry by carrying him off to his library on
one pretext or another, he would carefully close the door and commence,
"You men who've seen service are all unbalanced; it would be unfair to
hold any of you responsible. You're no exception, my dear fellow, though
you probably don't notice it in yourself. As Lady Beddow was saying to
me this morning, 'Poor Lord Taborley, he has a rambling mind. Most
likely it's a species of shell-shock. There's a queer look comes into
his eyes. It's not always there. It's a look as if he were haunted. You
ought to speak to him, Tobias--you're his oldest friend--and advise him
to see a specialist. It's lucky we found his weakness out before things
between him and Terry went too far.'"

Or he would say, "Lady Beddow and I were talking about you, my dear
fellow. You know she's very fond of you. She loved your mother before
you. 'The little big lady from America,' she used to call her. She's
naturally very much ups