"It's not a pleasant subject. I should really rather not discuss it,
Miss Madeleine."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't let us play the prudish or sentimental!"
cried Madeleine, in a burst of impatience. "Of course, it isn't
pleasant. Do you think I should "--"bother with you," was on her
tongue. She checked herself, and substituted--"trouble you about it, if
it were? But Maurice was once a friend of ours--you don't deny it, I
hope?" she threw in challengingly; for Dove muttered something to
himself. "And I want to get at the truth about him. I'm sorrier than I
can say, to hear, on all sides, what a fool he's making of himself."

Dove was suavely silent.

"Of course," continued Madeleine with a sarcastic inflection--"of
course, I can't expect you to see it as I do. Men look at these things
differently, I know. Possibly if I were a man, I, too, should stand by,
with my hands in my pockets, and watch a friend butt his head against a
stone wall--thinking it, indeed, rather good fun."

She had touched Dove on a tender spot. "I can assure you, Miss
Madeleine," he said impressively, as they picked their steps across a
dirty road--"I can assure you, you are mistaken. I think just as
strictly in matters of this kind as you yourself.--But as to
interfering in Guest's ... in his private affairs, well, frankly, I
shouldn't care to try it. He was always a curiously reserved fellow."

"Reserved--obstinate-pig-headed!--call it what you like," said
Madeleine. "But don't imagine I'm asking you to interfere. I only want
you to tell me, briefly and simply, what you know about him. And to
make it easier for you, I'll begin by telling you what I know.--It's an
old story, isn't it, that Maurice once supplanted some one else in a
certain young woman's favour? Well, now I hear that he, in turn, is to
be laid on the shelf.--Is that true, or isn't it?"

"Really, Miss Madeleine!--that's a very blunt way of putting it," said
Dove uncomfortably.

"Oh, when a friend's at stake, I can't hum and haw," said Madeleine,
who could never keep her temper with Dove for long. "I call a spade a
spade, and rejoice to do it. What I ask you to tell me is, whether I've
been correctly informed or not. Have you, too, heard Louise Dufrayer's
name coupled with that of a man called Herries?"

But Dove was stubborn. "As far as I'm concerned, Miss Madeleine, the
truth is, I've hardly exchanged a word with Guest since spring. Into
his ... friendship with Miss Dufra