t of thing that oughtn't to be encouraged."

"But I understood you to say that you yourself had told him to see her
home," Simon Loggerheads put in. "Isn't that encouraging her, as it
were?"

"Ah!" said Mary, with a smile. "I only suggested it to him because it
came over me all of a sudden how nice it would be to have you here all
alone! He can't be back much before twelve."

To such a remark there is but one response. A sofa is, after all, made
for two people, and the chance of the servant calling on them was small.

"And so the clock stopped!" observed Simon Loggerheads.

"Yes," said Mary. "If it hadn't been for the sheer accident of that
clock stopping, we shouldn't be sitting here on this sofa now, and Dick
would be in that chair, and you would just be beginning to tell him that
we are engaged." She sighed. "Poor Dick! What on earth will he do?"

"Strange how things happen!" Simon reflected in a low voice. "But I'm
really surprised at that clock stopping like that. It's a clock that you
ought to be able to depend on, that clock is."

He got up to inspect the timepiece. He knew all about the clock, because
he had been chairman of the presentation committee which had gone to
Manchester to buy it.

"Why!" he murmured, after he had toyed a little with the pendulum, "it
goes all right. Its tick is as right as rain."

"How odd!" responded Mary.

Simon Loggerheads set the clock by his own impeccable watch, and then
sat down again. And he drew something from his waistcoat pocket and slid
it on to Mary's finger.

Mary regarded her finger in silent ecstasy, and then breathed "How
lovely!"--not meaning her finger.

"Shall I stay till he comes back?" asked Simon.

"If I were you I shouldn't do that," said Mary. "But you can safely stay
till eleven-thirty. Then I shall go to bed. He'll be tired and short
[curt] when he gets back. I'll tell him myself to-morrow morning at
breakfast. And you might come to-morrow afternoon early, for tea."

Simon did stay till half-past eleven. He left precisely when the clock,
now convalescent, struck the half-hour. At the door Mary said to him:

"I won't have any secrets from you, Simon. It was I who stopped that
clock. I stopped it while they were bending down looking for music. I
wanted to be as sure as I could of a good excuse for me suggesting that
he ought to take her home. I just wanted to get him out of the house."

"But why?" asked Simon.

"I must leave that to you to