t arrived at a final judgment
about her. Withal Lady Massulam had a quality which she lacked,--he did
not know what the quality was, but he knew that it excited him in an
unprecedented manner and that he wanted it and would renounce it with
regret. "Is it conceivable," he thought, shocked at himself, "that all
three of us are on the road to fifty years?"

Then he turned, and blushed, feeling exactly like an undergraduate.

"I knew you'd be bored up there in that hole." Eve greeted him.

"I wasn't bored for a single moment," said he.

"Don't tell me," said she.

She was very smart in her plumpness. The brim of her spreading hat
bumped against his forehead as he bent to kiss her. The edge of the
brown veil came half-way down her face, leaving her mouth unprotected
from him, but obscuring her disturbing eyes. As he kissed her all his
despondency and worry fell away from him, and he saw with extraordinary
clearness that since the previous evening he had been an irrational ass.
The creature had done nothing unusual, nothing that he had not
explicitly left her free to do; and everything was all right.

"Did you see your friend Lady Massulam?" was her first question.

Marvellous the intuition--or the happy flukes--of women! Yet their
duplicity was still more marvellous. The creature's expressed anxiety
about the danger of Lady Massulam's society to Charlie must have been
pure, wanton, gratuitous pretence.

He told her of his meeting with Lady Massulam.

"I left her at 2 a.m.," said he, with well-feigned levity.

"I knew she wouldn't leave you alone for long. But I've no doubt you
enjoyed it. I hope you did. You need adventure, my poor boy. You were
getting into a regular rut."

"Oh, was I!" he opposed. "And what are you doing here? Machin told me
you were out for lunch."

"Oh! You've been having a chat with your friend Machin, have you? It
seems she's shown you your beautiful dressing-room. Well, I was going
out for lunch. But when I heard you'd returned I gave it up and came
back. I knew so well you'd want looking after."

"And who told you I'd returned?"

"Carthew, of course! You're a very peculiar pair, you two. When I first
saw him Carthew gave me to understand he'd left you at Frinton. But when
I see him again I learn that you're in town and that you spent last
night at Claridge's. You did quite right, my poor boy. Quite right. I
want you to feel free. It must have been great fun stopping at
Claridge's, w