nine weaknesses; you are punctual, strive also to be
reasonable. Tom is my best friend. From boyhood we have been always
together. There is nothing Tom would not do for me, or I for Tom. You
must like him, Clara; you must, if only for my sake."

"I'll try," Clara promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and
broad daylight.

"You'll be very nice to him at tea, won't you?" he said anxiously. "I
shouldn't like you two to be bad friends."

"I don't want to be bad friends," Clara protested; "only the moment I
saw him a strange repulsion and mistrust came over me."

"You are quite wrong about him--quite wrong," he assured her earnestly.
"When you know him better, you'll find him the best of fellows. Oh, I
know," he said suddenly, "I suppose he was very untidy, and you women go
so much by appearances!"

"Not at all," Clara retorted. "'Tis you men who go by appearances."

"Yes, you do. That's why you care for me," he said, smiling.

She assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he
plumed himself, but he smiled on. His smile died away, however, when he
entered his rooms and found Tom nowhere.

"I daresay you've made him run about hunting for me," he grumbled.

"Perhaps he knew I'd come back, and went away to leave us together," she
answered. "He said he would when you came."

"And yet you say you don't like him!"

She smiled reassuringly. Inwardly, however, she felt pleased at the
man's absence.

CHAPTER III.

POLLY RECEIVES A PROPOSAL.

[Illustration: "CARRYING ON WITH POLLY."]

If Clara Newell could have seen Tom Peters carrying on with Polly in the
passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. It
must be confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with Polly.
Alas! it is to be feared that men are much of a muchness where women are
concerned; shabby men and smart men, bank managers and journalists,
bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. Perhaps it was a mistake after
all to say the chums had nothing patently in common. Everard, I am
afraid, kissed Polly rather more often than Clara, and although it was
because he respected her less, the reason would perhaps not have been
sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. For Polly was pretty,
especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and when at ten p.m. she
returned from her outings, she was generally met in the passage by one
or other of the men. Polly liked to receive the homage of real
gentlemen, an