ced to him, I had been rather favourably
impressed. He was a tall dark man of thirty-five, with more than the
average endowment of good looks. He could tell a good story, had shot
big game in most parts of the world, was well-read, intelligent,
possessed unexceptionable manners, and yet---- Well, Winter had none of
his various qualifications, but I would at any time far rather have had
one friend like Winter than a hundred like the other man.

I had first made his acquaintance at Colonel Maitland's house, where I
had found him on an apparently intimate footing. Perhaps it was this
very intimacy which formed the basis for my dislike, for--there is no
need to mince matters--at this time I was jealous, horribly and
unreasonably jealous, of every male person who entered the Colonel's
house. And here, perhaps, it will be better for me to explain how it
happened that I came to be living in a cottage on the outskirts of St.
Albans in preference to my own house in Norfolk.

The change in my residence had been entirely due to a tennis party at
Cromer. There I met Evie Maitland. She was---- No, every one can fill in
the blank from their own experience for themselves; and if they cannot,
I pity them.

Fortunately I had an aunt present. She was the most amiable of aunts,
and quite devoted towards her most dutiful nephew. With her assistance,
I managed not only to improve my acquaintance with Miss Maitland, but
also to effect an introduction to her father. I had only known them a
week, however, before the Colonel took his daughter back to St. Albans.
I allowed an interval of a fortnight to elapse, and then I followed. Of
course I had to be prepared with some excuse, and here luck favoured me.
Looking through the directory I discovered that Winter, whom I knew
slightly as having been up at Camford about the same time as myself, was
also a resident in the delightful St. Alban's suburb of St. Stephens
where the Maitlands resided. I sought out Winter. I confided my story to
him. The upshot of it all was that I took a cottage close to his house,
and not far from the Colonel's, ostensibly that under Winter's tuition I
might develop into a first-class motorist.

Somehow I found that I made a great deal more progress with my motoring
than with my love-making. Surely a more bewitching, tantalizing,
provoking little beauty than Evie Maitland never tore a man's heart to
fragments. If she was kind to me one day, she would be still kinder to