o
canonisation, that's all."

Then it was that little Mrs. Gardner spoke. She had been married for a
year, and her face still wore its bridal look of possession that was
peace, the look that it would wear when Mrs. Gardner was seventy. Her
voice had a certain lucid and profound precision.

"Anne was always certain of herself. And since she cares for Mr. Majendie
enough to accept him and to accept his sister, and the rather _triste_
life which is all he has to offer her, doesn't it look as if, probably,
she knew her own business best?"

"I think," said Mr. Eliott firmly, "we may take it that she does."

Miss Proctor's departure was felt as a great liberation of the intellect.

Mrs. Pooley sat up in her corner and revived the conversation interrupted
by Miss Proctor. Mrs. Pooley had felt that to talk about Mrs. Majendie
was to waste Mrs. Eliott. Mrs. Majendie apart, Mrs. Pooley had many ideas
in common with her friend; but, whereas Mrs. Eliott would spend superbly
on one idea at a time, Mrs. Pooley's intellect entertained promiscuously
and beyond its means. It was inclined to be hospitable to ideas that had
never met outside it, whose encounter was a little distressing to
everybody concerned. Whenever this happened Mrs. Pooley would appeal to
Mr. Eliott, and Mr. Eliott would say, "Don't ask me. I'm a stupid fellow.
Don't ask me to decide anything."

Thus did Mr. Eliott wilfully obscure himself.

To-day he was more impregnably concealed than ever. He hadn't any
opinions of his own. They were too expensive. He borrowed other people's
when he wanted them. "But," said Mr. Eliott, "it is very seldom that I
do want an opinion. If you have any facts to give me--well and good." For
he knew that, at the mention of facts, Mrs. Pooley's intellect would
retreat behind a cloud and that his wife would pursue it there.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Eliott, "there's such a thing as realising your
ideals."

Her eyes gleamed and wandered and rested upon Mrs. Gardner. Mrs. Gardner
had a singularly beautiful intellect which she was known to be shy of
displaying. People said that Dr. Gardner had fallen in love with it
years ago, and had only waited for it to mature before he married it.
Mrs. Gardner had a habit of sitting apart from the discussion and
untroubled by it, tolerant in her own excess of bliss. It irritated Mrs.
Eliott, on her Thursdays, to think of the distinguished ideas that Mrs.
Gardner might have introduced and didn't. She