"I don't know what to think," she said at last. "I don't know what
to make of you--brother Chris. I thought, do you know? that you were
perfectly honest. And somehow--"

"Well?"

"I think so still."

"Honest--with all those lies!"

"I wonder."

"I don't," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "I'm fair ashamed of myself. But
anyhow--I've stopped deceiving you."

"I THOUGHT," said the Young Lady in Grey, "that story of the lion--"

"Lord!" said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Don't remind me of THAT."

"I thought, somehow, I FELT, that the things you said didn't ring quite
true." She suddenly broke out in laughter, at the expression of his
face. "Of COURSE you are honest," she said. "How could I ever doubt it?
As if _I_ had never pretended! I see it all now."

Abruptly she rose, and extended her hand across the breakfast things. He
looked at her doubtfully, and saw the dancing friendliness in her eyes.
He scarcely understood at first. He rose, holding the marmalade spoon,
and took her proffered hand with abject humility. "Lord," he broke out,
"if you aren't enough--but there!"

"I see it all now." A brilliant inspiration had suddenly obscured her
humour. She sat down suddenly, and he sat down too. "You did it,"
she said, "because you wanted to help me. And you thought I was too
Conventional to take help from one I might think my social inferior."

"That was partly it," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

"How you misunderstood me!" she said.

"You don't mind?"

"It was noble of you. But I am sorry," she said, "you should think me
likely to be ashamed of you because you follow a decent trade."

"I didn't know at first, you see," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

And he submitted meekly to a restoration of his self-respect. He was
as useful a citizen as could be,--it was proposed and carried,--and
his lying was of the noblest. And so the breakfast concluded much more
happily than his brightest expectation, and they rode out of ruddy
little Blandford as though no shadow of any sort had come between them.

XXXVI.

As they were sitting by the roadside among the pine trees half-way up a
stretch of hill between Wimborne and Ringwood, however, Mr. Hoopdriver
reopened the question of his worldly position.

"Ju think," he began abruptly, removing a meditative cigarette from his
mouth, "that a draper's shopman IS a decent citizen?"

"Why not?"

"When he puts people off with what they don't quite want, for instance?"

"Need he do that?"

"Salesmanshi