weet the trees smelled. He was not happy.
You see, Bewsher had been the nearest approach to a friend he had ever
had.

"That practically finished the sordid business. What the girl said to
Bewsher Morton never knew; he trusted to her conventionalized religion
and her family pride to break Bewsher's heart, and to Bewsher's
sentimentality to eliminate him forever from the scene. In both surmises
he was correct; he was only not aware that at the same time the girl had
broken her own heart. He found that out afterward. And Bewsher
eliminated himself more thoroughly than necessary. I suppose the shame
of the thing was to him like a blow to a thoroughbred, instead of an
incentive, as it would have been to a man of coarser fibre. He went from
bad to worse, resigned from his regiment, finally disappeared.
Personally, I had hoped that he had begun again somewhere on the
outskirts of the world. But he isn't that sort. There's not much of the
Norman king to him except his nose. The girl married Morton. He gave her
no time to recover from her gratitude. He felt very happy, he told me,
the day of his wedding, very elated. It was one of those rare occasions
when he felt that the world was a good place. Another high light, you
see. And it was no mean thing, if you consider it, for a man such as he
to marry the daughter of a peer, and at the same time to love her. He
was not a gentleman, you understand, he could never be that--it was the
one secret thing that always hurt him--no amount of brains, no amount of
courage could make him what he wasn't; he never lied to himself as most
men do; so he had acquired a habit of secretly triumphing over those who
possessed the gift. The other thing that hurt him was when, a few months
later, he discovered that his wife still loved Bewsher and always would.
And that"--Sir John picked up the broken rose again--"is, I suppose, the
end of the story."

There was a moment's silence and then Burnaby lifted his pointed chin.
"By George!" he said, "it _is_ interesting to know how things really
happen, isn't it? But I think--you have, haven't you, left out the real
point. Do you--would you mind telling just why you imagine Morton did
this thing? Told his secret before all those people? It wasn't like him,
was it?"

Sir John slowly lighted another cigarette, and then he turned to Burnaby
and smiled. "Yes," he said, "it was extremely like him. Still, it's very
clever of you, very clever. Can't you guess? I