the subject of another young singer, whom he declared to be _un
garcon charmant_, but no good. 'He could not sing for nuts.'

She heartily agreed, and they began to get on beautifully again, when
she suddenly said to him:

'Is it true you were seen talking in the park to that girl Miss
Turnbull, on Sunday?'

'If you say I was seen, I was. You could not know I talk to her unless
I was seen. You could not know by wireless.'

'Don't talk nonsense, Paul,' she answered sharply. 'The point isn't
that you were seen, but that you did it.'

'Who did it? Me? I didn't do anything.'

'I don't think it's fair to me, I must say; it hurt my feelings that
you should meet Amy Turnbull in the park and talk to her.'

'But what could I say? It is ver' difficul. I walk through the park;
she walk through it with another lady. She speak to me. She say: Ah,
dear Mr La France, what pleasure to see you! I ask you, Lady Everard,
could I, a foreigner, not even naturalised here, could I order her out
of the park? Could I scream out to her: Go out, do not walk in ze Hyde
Park! Lady Everard do not like you! I have no authority to say that. I
am not responsible for the persons that walk in their own park in their
own country. She might answer me to go to the devil! She might say to
me: What, Lady Everard not like me, so I am not allowed in the park?
What that got to do with it? In a case like this, chere madame, I have
no legal power.'

She laughed forgivingly and said:

'Ah, well, one mustn't be too exacting!' and as she showed some signs
of a desire to pat his hair he rose, sat down to the piano, greatly to
her disappointment, and filled up the rest of the time by improvising
(from memory). It was a little fatiguing, as she thought it her duty to
keep up an expression of acute rapture during the whole of the
performance, which lasted at least three-quarters of an hour.

CHAPTER XXIV

Miss Bennett

Since his return Aylmer saw everything through what he called a
rose-coloured microscope--that is to say, every detail of his life, and
everything connected with it, seemed to him perfect. He saw Edith as
much as ever, and far less formally than before. She treated him with
affectionate ease. She had admitted by her behaviour on the night he
returned that she cared for him, and, for the moment, that was enough.
A sort of general relaxation of formality, due to the waning of the
season, and to people being too busy to bother, or already i