via said gently she feared wild horses would not persuade him to come
back, Felicity answered, with some show of reason, that wild horses were
not likely to try. Indeed, little Felicity was rather depressed. What
was the fun of bowling people over, like so many ninepins, unless dear
Chetwode, her usual admiring audience, were there to see them
overthrown? However, no doubt, it would be fun. Felicity's view of life
was that it was great fun. As she had never had any real troubles, she
had not yet discovered that a sense of humour adds acutely to one's
sufferings at the time, though it may help recovery. To see the
absurdity of a grief increases it. It entirely prevents that real
enjoyment in magnifying one's misfortunes in order to excite
sympathy--an attribute so often seen in women, from char-woman to
duchess. But Felicity was not destined to misfortune. Ridokanaki
sometimes compared her to a ray of sunshine, and her sister to a
moonbeam. The comparison, if not startlingly original, was fairly just.
Felicity retorted by saying that the Greek was like a wax-candle burnt
at both ends and in the middle, while Woodville resembled a carefully
shaded electric light. She was anxious to know the words in which
Ridokanaki would propose, and had already had several rehearsals of the
scene with her sister, inducing Sylvia sometimes to refuse and sometimes
to accept, just to see how it went. Felicity said that if he were
rejected the marriage would in the end be a certainty, as a little
difficulty would gratify and surprise him, and make him "_bother about
it_" more. Everything was generally made so easy for him that he would
certainly enjoy a little trouble, and the idea of obtaining a girl
rather against her inclination would be sure to appeal to him.
Opposition in such matters is always attractive to a spirited
second-rate man.

* * * * *

All the preparations being complete, Woodville, part of whose absurd
duties was to make quantities of unnecessary lists and go over the wine,
went, the day before the party, to see a friend of his, where the
atmosphere was so entirely different from his own that he regarded these
visits as a change of air.

"Mr. Mervyn in?"

"Oh yes, sir. There's a rehearsal to-day. So Mr. Mervyn has lunched
early."

A deep voice called from the inner room--

"Hallo, Frank! Come in, old chap!"

Arthur Mervyn had been at school and at Balliol with Woodville, and was
one