to Archie it was, and always had been, a bit of all
right. The more he thought of it the more did he marvel that a girl like
Lucille should have been content to link her lot with that of a Class C
specimen like himself. His meditations were, in fact, precisely what a
happily-married man's meditations ought to be.

He was roused from them by a species of exclamation or cry almost at
his elbow, and turned to find that the spectacular Miss Silverton was
standing beside him. Her dubious hair gleamed in the sunlight, and one
of the criticised eyes was screwed up. The other gazed at Archie with an
expression of appeal.

"There's something in my eye," she said.

"No, really!"

"I wonder if you would mind? It would be so kind of you!"

Archie would have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of
the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To
twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the
corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct
may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King
Arthur's knights used to do this sort of thing all the time, and look
what people think of them. Lucille, therefore, coming out of the
hotel just as the operation was concluded, ought not to have felt
the annoyance she did. But, of course, there is a certain superficial
intimacy about the attitude of a man who is taking a fly out of a
woman's eye which may excusably jar upon the sensibilities of his wife.
It is an attitude which suggests a sort of rapprochement or camaraderie
or, as Archie would have put it, what not.

"Thanks so much!" said Miss Silverton.

"Oh no, rather not," said Archie.

"Such a nuisance getting things in your eye."

"Absolutely!"

"I'm always doing it!"

"Rotten luck!"

"But I don't often find anyone as clever as you to help me."

Lucille felt called upon to break in on this feast of reason and flow of
soul.

"Archie," she said, "if you go and get your clubs now, I shall just have
time to walk round with you before my train goes."

"Oh, ah!" said Archie, perceiving her for the first time. "Oh, ah, yes,
right-o, yes, yes, yes!"

On the way to the first tee it seemed to Archie that Lucille was
distrait and abstracted in her manner; and it occurred to him, not for
the first time in his life, what a poor support a clear conscience is
in moments of crisis. Dash it all, he didn't see what else he could have