ough to guard my wife from most dangers, I think!"

The violet-blue eyes meeting his held a somewhat weary smile. It was
beginning already--that inevitable noncomprehension of two such
divergent natures. They did not sense the same things--did not even
speak the same language. Trenby took everything quite literally--the
obvious surface meaning of the words, and the delicate nuances of
speech, the significant inflections interwoven with it, meant about as
much to him as the frail Venetian glass, the dainty porcelain figures
of old Bristol or Chelsea ware, would mean to the proverbial bull in a
china-shop.

"And now, sweetheart," he went on, rather conventionally, "when will
you come to see my mother? She will be longing to meet you."

Nan shuddered inwardly. Of course she knew one always _did_ ultimately
meet one's future mother-in-law, but the prompt and dutiful way in
which Roger brought out his suggestion seemed like a sentence culled
from some Early Victorian book. Certainly it was altogether alien to
Nan's ultra-modern, semi-Bohemian notions.

"Suppose you come to lunch to-morrow? I should like you to meet her as
soon as possible."

There was something just the least bit didactic in the latter part of
the sentence, a hint of the proprietary note. Nan recoiled from it
instinctively.

"No, not to-morrow," she exclaimed hastily. "I'm going over to see
Aunt Eliza--Mrs. McBain, you know--and I can't put it off. I haven't
been near her for a fortnight, and she'll he awfully offended if I
don't go."

"Then it must be Tuesday," said Roger, with an air of making a
concession.

Nan felt that nothing could save her from Tuesday, and agreed meekly.
At the same moment, to her unspeakable relief, Kitty looked into the
room to enquire gaily:

"Are you two still saying good-bye?"

Trenby rose reluctantly.

"No. We were just making arrangements about Nan's coming to the Hall
to meet my mother. We've fixed it all up, so I must be off now."

It was with a curious sense of freedom regained that Nan watched the
lights of Roger's car speed down the drive.

At least she was her own mistress again till Tuesday!

* * * * * *

Although Nan had conferred the brevet rank of aunt upon Eliza McBain,
the latter was in reality only the sister of an uncle by marriage and
no blood relation--a dispensation for which, at not infrequent
intervals of Nan's career, Mrs. McBain had been led to