or a few minutes. I see perfectly that you have a
great deal to complain of, but I also see that Lady Henry has something
of a case."

And with a courteous authority and tact worthy of his trade, the old
diplomat began to discuss the situation.

Presently he found himself talking with an animation, a friendliness, an
intimacy that surprised himself. What was there in the personality
beside him that seemed to win a way inside a man's defences in spite of
him? Much of what she had said had seemed to him arrogant or morbid. And
yet as she listened to him, with an evident dying down of passion, an
evident forlornness, he felt in her that woman's weakness and timidity
of which she had accused herself in relation to Lady Henry, and was
somehow, manlike, softened and disarmed. She had been talking wildly,
because no doubt she felt herself in great difficulties. But when it was
his turn to talk she neither resented nor resisted what he had to say.
The kinder he was, the more she yielded, almost eagerly at times, as
though the thorniness of her own speech had hurt herself most, and there
were behind it all a sad life, and a sad heart that only asked in truth
for a little sympathy and understanding.

"I shall soon be calling her 'my dear' and patting her hand," thought
the old man, at last, astonished at himself. For the dejection in her
attitude and gait began to weigh upon him; he felt a warm desire to
sustain and comfort her. More and more thought, more and more
contrivance did he throw into the straightening out of this tangle
between two excitable women, not, it seemed, for Lady Henry's sake, not,
surely, for Miss Le Breton's sake. But--ah! those two poor, dead folk,
who had touched his heart long ago, did he feel the hovering of their
ghosts beside him in the wintry wind?

At any rate, he abounded in shrewd and fatherly advice, and Mademoiselle
Le Breton listened with a most flattering meekness.

"Well, now I think we have come to an understanding," he urged,
hopefully, as they turned down Bruton Street again.

Mademoiselle Le Breton sighed.

"It is very kind of you. Oh, I will do my best. But--"

She shook her head uncertainly.

"No--no 'buts,'" cried Sir Wilfrid, cheerfully. "Suppose, as a first
step," he smiled at his companion, "you tell Lady Henry about
the bazaar?"

"By all means. She won't let me go. But Evelyn will find some one else."

"Oh, we'll see about that," said the old man, almost crossly. "If y