elt when I saw you sitting
over there. It is nearly a month since we met, and I couldn't keep away
any longer.'

Rhoda swept the distance with indifferent eyes.

'Mary was fond of this girl?' he inquired, watching her.

'Yes, she was.'

'Then her distress, and even anger, are natural enough. We won't
discuss the girl's history; probably I know all that I need to. But
whatever her misdoing, you certainly didn't wish to drive her to
suicide.'

Rhoda deigned no reply.

'All the same,' he continued in his gentlest tone, 'it turns out that
you have practically done so. If Mary had taken the girl back that
despair would most likely never have come upon her. Isn't it natural
that Mary should repent of having been guided by you, and perhaps say
rather severe things?'

'Natural, no doubt. But it is just as natural for me to resent blame
where I have done nothing blameworthy.'

'You are absolutely sure that this is the case?'

'I thought you expressed a conviction that I was in the right?'

There was no smile, but Everard believed that he detected its
possibility on the closed lips.

'I have got into the way of always thinking so--in questions of this
kind. But perhaps you tend to err on the side of severity. Perhaps you
make too little allowance for human weakness.'

'Human weakness is a plea that has been much abused, and generally in
an interested spirit.'

This was something like a personal rebuke. Whether she so meant it,
Barfoot could not determine. He hoped she did, for the more personal
their talk became the better he would be pleased.

'I, for one,' he said, 'very seldom urge that plea, whether in my own
defence or another's. But it answers to a spirit we can't altogether
dispense with. Don't you feel ever so little regret that your severe
logic prevailed?'

'Not the slightest regret.'

Everard thought this answer magnificent. He had anticipated some
evasion. However inappropriately, he was constrained to smile.

'How I admire your consistency! We others are poor halting creatures in
comparison.'

'Mr. Barfoot,' said Rhoda suddenly, 'I have had enough of this. If your
approval is sincere, I don't ask for it. If you are practising your
powers of irony, I had rather you chose some other person. I will go my
way, if you please.'

She just bent her head, and left him.

Enough for the present. Having raised his hat and turned on his heels,
Barfoot strolled away in a mood of peculiar satisfaction. H