at a terribly
philanthropic age it is!'

Jean smiled as she went on with her explanation. 'Although it wasn't her
Sunday, Sophia, like an angel, has gone to the club. And I'm here to
explain. Mrs. Freddy said if she wasn't back on the stroke----'

'Oh, I dare say I'm a trifle early.'

It was a theory that presented fewer difficulties than that he should be
kept waiting.

'I was to beg you to give her a few minutes' grace in any case.'

Instead of finding a seat, he stood looking down at the charming face.
His indifference to Mrs Freddy's precise programme lent his eyes a
misleading look of absent-mindedness, which dashed the girl's obvious
excitement over the encounter.

'I see,' he had said slowly. What he saw was a graceful creature of
medium height, with a clear colour and grey-blue eyes fixed on him with
an interest as eager as it was frank. What the grey-blue eyes saw was
probably some glorified version of Stonor's straight, firm features, a
little blunt, which lacked that semblance of animation given by colour,
and seemed to scorn to make up for it by any mobility of expression. The
grey eyes, set somewhat too prominently, were heavy when not interested,
and the claim to good looks which nobody had dreamed of denying seemed
to rest mainly upon the lower part of his face. The lips, over-full,
perhaps, were firmly moulded, but the best lines were those curves from
the ear to the quite beautiful chin. The gloss on the straight
light-brown hair may have stood to the barber's credit, but only health
could keep so much grace still in the carriage of a figure heavier than
should be in a man of forty--one who, without a struggle, had declined
from polo unto golf. There was no denying that the old expression of
incipient sullenness, fleeting or suppressed, was deepening into the
main characteristic of his face, though it was held that he, as little
as any man, had cause to present that aspect to a world content to be
his oyster. Yet, as no doubt he had long ago learned, it was that very
expression which was the cause of much of the general concern people
seemed to feel to placate, to amuse, to dispel the menace of that cloud.
The girl saw it, and her heart failed her.

'Mrs. Freddy said if I told you the children were in the garden
expecting you, you wouldn't have the heart to go away directly.'

'She is right. I _haven't_ the heart.' And in that lifting of his cloud,
the girl's own face shone an instant.

'I sh