nusually white; he liked her
hair--such a lot of it; he liked the mobility of her lips, the
fineness and straightness of her nose; and he also greatly liked the
broad black ribbon that was tied round her slender neck. The simple
decoration seemed curiously in harmony with something childlike
pertaining to its wearer. He did not attempt to analyze this
characteristic, but he felt it plainly--something that drew its
components from voice, expression, gesture, and that as a whole
carried to one a message of extreme youth.

And how fond of her husband! The anxiety for his welfare that she had
shown just now quite touched a soft spot in Mr. Ridgett's dryly
official heart.

"You know," said Dale, interrupting the conversation, and speaking as
though the subject that occupied his own mind was still under debate,
"they can't pretend but what I warned them. I said it's madness to go
and put the instruments anywhere but the place I've marked on the
plan. If they'd listened to my words _then_--"

"Ah, there you are again," said Mr. Ridgett. "The personal equation!"

"Where's the personality of it?"

"I'll tell you. London isn't Rodchurch. What you said--how many years
ago?--isn't going to govern the judgment of people who never heard you
say it."

"It ought to have gone on record. It _is_ on record over at Rodhaven."

"London isn't Rodhaven either."

Then once again the talk became serious; and once again Ridgett saw in
Mrs. Dale's white face, trembling fingers, and narrowed eyes, the
deadly anxiety that she was suffering. With that face opposite to one,
it would have been monstrously cruel not to offer the wisest and best
considered advice that one could anyhow produce.

"Here's _verb. sap_," he said solemnly. "_Ultimatum_, and _ne plus
ultra_. I'm giving you Latin for Latin, Mr. Dale. I understand your
attitude, and I appreciate its bearing; but I say to you, the best
causes sometimes need the best advocates."

"Yes!" Mavis drew in her breath with a little gasp.

"If any of the gentry down here would speak up for you, send you a few
testimonials--well, I should get them to do it. You see, from what you
tell me of the case, you've your Member of Parliament against you. It
would be useful to counteract--"

Then Mavis eagerly explained that the biggest man of the neighborhood
had promised to give his support to her husband. This great personage
was the Right Honorable Everard Barradine, an ex-Cabinet Minister and
a