he would be in the way."

"Is it necessary to ask her at all?"

"If he comes, yes. I think we ought."

Martin looked thoughtful in his turn. It was evident that, like his
wife, he was not anxious for the society of Teresa Mallison, but after a
moment's consideration he was ready with a solution.

"We'll ask her from Friday till Monday, at the end of his stay. Then
they can travel home together. She will understand that he is asked
primarily for golf. What on earth makes you imagine that he doesn't
like you?"

Grizel pursed her lips.

"I think... _he_ thinks, I have more than my share!"

"Of--what?"

"Happiness."

Martin's face softened eloquently.

"So you have, darling. So you always will have. But that's thanks to
yourself. And why should he grudge you your happiness, pray? Isn't he
happy himself? Isn't his Teresa happy?"

"Oh, yes. Teresa is as happy as Teresa can be."

"Well, then!" exclaimed Martin conclusively, and dropped the subject.
He had wisely abandoned the effort of following his wife's nights of
thought, and was for the moment more engrossed with his own. He glanced
at the clock, and there fell over his face that restless, straining
expression which Grizel had learned to recognise as a sign that work in
the study was not going well. Being a wife she dared a question which
from anyone else would have been an offence.

"Book dragging?"

"Badly."

"What's the trouble?"

"Come to a full stop. I know where I am, and I know where I want to
get, but there's a middle distance to be filled in... filled, not
padded... and ideas won't come. I need four or five chapters to give
the characters time to--er--"

"I know." Grizel tilted her chin and assumed an expression of ferocious
absorption. She would emerge from it presently and make suggestions,
and none of the suggestions would be of the slightest use. Martin knew
as much, but he lingered all the same because Grizel was Grizel, and
whatever she said delighted him to hear.

"Make the heroine go into the park, and sit on a bench, and talk to an
old man..."

"Yes."

"Well... A shabby old man, but with signs of race. He would hint at
troubles, and she would sort of lure him on to tell her his history--"

"Yes?"

"How stupid you are! Then of course you must work it out. He might be
a miser, or an uncle from China--or the husband of someone who had
married again. _Is_ anyone married again?"

"No."

"Oh, well then,