she and not the Bumbles had paid
for its insertion, Valerie thought it unnecessary to state.

"We're fated to be brought together," she said.

"How did you know I was at The Shrubbery?"

Valerie raised her eyebrows.

"Betty's my oldest friend," she replied.

Lyveden swallowed the _suggestio falsi_ without a thought. Indeed, so
soon as she had spoken, his mind sped back, bee-like, to suck the honey
of her previous words: "We're fated to be brought together." Fated....

The moon was up now, and he lifted his eyes and gazed at its clear-cut
beauty. A power, then, greater than he had ruled against his resolve.
Why? To what end? It was very kind of the power--at least, he
supposed it was--but what was to come of it?

He had wandered straight into her arms. Very good. But--he and she
could not stroll upon this terrace for ever. The relentless rubric of
Life insisted that he must move--whither he chose, of course, but
somewhither. The truth was, he did not know which way to turn. His
heart pointed a path, certainly--a very precious path, paved all with
silk, hung with the scent of flowers, shadowed by whispering
plumage.... His head, however, beyond denouncing his heart as a guide,
pointed no way at all.

Anthony wanted desperately to do the right thing. Fortune, it seemed,
was at her old tricks. Here she was handing a palace to a beggar who
had not enough money to maintain a hovel. It would not have been so
hopeless if he had possessed "prospects." With these in his pack, he
might have essayed the way his heart showed him. They were, however,
no part of a footman's equipment....

Anthony began to wonder what became of old footmen. One or two,
perhaps, became butlers. As for the rest...

Valerie, too, was in some perplexity. She was wondering, now that she
had her man here, how best to deal with him. Pride and honour make up
a ground which must be trodden delicately. One false step on her part
might cost them both extremely dear. Her instinct was to take the bull
by the horns, Anthony by the arm, and Time by the forelock. The last
of these was slipping away--slipping away. She was actually
twenty-six. In a short fourteen years she would be actually forty.
Forty! For a moment she was upon the very edge of exercising the
privilege of a sovereign lady who has fallen in love. All things
considered, she would, I think, have been justified. Something,
however, restrained her. It was not mode