"Ay," said Phineas.

"He did that"--Phineas had given an imaginative and picturesque
account of the episode--"for this girl Jeanne?"

"It is a strange coincidence, Mrs. Manningtree," replied Phineas, with
a flicker of his lips elusively suggestive of unctuousness, "that
almost those identical words were used by Mademoiselle Bossiere in my
presence. '_Il a fait cela pour moi!_' But--you will pardon me for
saying it--with a difference of intonation, which, as a woman, no
doubt you will be able to divine and appreciate."

"I know," said Peggy. She bent forward and picked with finger and
thumb at the fluff of the blanket. Then she said, intent on the fluff:
"If a man had done a thing like that for me, I should have crawled
after him to the ends of the earth." Presently she looked up with a
flash of the eyes. "Why isn't this girl doing it?"

"You must listen to the end of the story," said Phineas. "I may tell
you that I always regarded myself, with my Scots caution, as a model
of tact and discretion; but after many conversations with Doggie, I'm
beginning to have my doubts. I also imagined that I was very careful
of my personal belongings; but facts have convicted me of criminal
laxity."

Peggy smiled. "That sounds like a confession, Mr. McPhail."

"Maybe it's in the nature of one," he assented. "But by your leave,
Mrs. Manningtree, I'll resume my narrative."

He continued the story of Jeanne: how she had learned through him of
Doggie's wealth and position and early upbringing; of the memorable
dinner-party with poor Mo; of Doggie's sensitive interpretation of her
French _bourgeoise_ attitude; and finally the loss of the letter
containing her address in Paris.

After he had finished, Peggy sat for a long while thinking. This
romance in Doggie's life had moved her as she thought she could never
be moved since the death of Oliver. Her thoughts winged themselves
back to an afternoon, remote almost as her socked and sashed
childhood, when Doggie, immaculately attired in grey and pearl
harmonies, had declared, with his little effeminate drawl, that tennis
made one so terribly hot. The scene in the Deanery garden flashed
before her. It was succeeded by a scene in the Deanery drawing-room
when, to herself indignant, he had pleaded his delicacy of
constitution. And the same Doggie, besides braving death a thousand
times in the ordinary execution of his soldier's duties, had performed
this queer deed of heroism for a gir