by mistake on the wrong
person," said Jack.

Sir John's fingers were at his lips.

"Yes," he said rather indistinctly, "while the right person is waiting
for it."

Jack looked up sharply, as if he either had not heard or did not
understand.

"While the right person is waiting for it," repeated Sir John
deliberately.

"The right person--?"

"Jocelyn Gordon," exclaimed Sir John, "is the right person."

Jack shrugged his shoulders and leant back so that the firelight did
not shine upon his face. "So I found out eighteen months ago," he said,
"when it was too late."

"There is no such thing as too late for that," said Sir John in his
great wisdom. "Even if you were both quite old it would not be too late.
I have known it for longer than you. I found it out two years ago."

Jack looked across the room into the keen, worldly-wise old face.

"How?" he inquired.

"From her. I found it out the moment she mentioned your name. I
conducted the conversation in such a manner that she had frequently to
say it, and whenever your name crossed her lips she--gave herself away."

Jack shook his head with an incredulous smile.

"Moreover," continued Sir John, "I maintain that it is not too late."

There followed a silence; both men seemed to be wrapped in thought, the
same thoughts with a difference of forty years of life in the method of
thinking them.

"I could not go to her with a lame story like that," said Jack. "I told
her all about Millicent."

"It is just a lame story like that that women understand," answered Sir
John. "When I was younger I thought as you do. I thought that a man must
needs bring a clean slate to the woman he asks to be his wife. It is
only his hands that must be clean. Women see deeper into these mistakes
of ours than we do; they see the good of them where we only see the
wound to our vanity. Sometimes one would almost be inclined to think
that they prefer a few mistakes in the past because it makes the present
surer. Their romance is a different thing from ours--it is a better
thing, deeper and less selfish. They can wipe the slate clean and never
look at it again. And the best of them--rather like the task."

Jack made no reply. Sir John Meredith's chin was resting on his vast
necktie. He was looking with failing eyes into the fire. He spoke like
one who was sure of himself--confident in his slowly accumulated store
of that knowledge which is not written in books.

"Will you oblige me?" h