l back
to zero. "I think the best way out will be for you to forgive her."

The idea did not even amuse him. Miss Greene glanced round to satisfy
herself that the door was still closed, and listened a moment to assure
herself of the silence.

"Don't you remember," Miss Greene took the extra precaution to whisper
it, "the talk we had at breakfast-time the first morning of my
visit, when Aimee said you would be all the better for 'going it'
occasionally?"

Yes, slowly it came back to Mr. Korner. But she only said "going it,"
Mr. Korner recollected to his dismay.

"Well, you've been 'going it,'" persisted Miss Greene. "Besides, she did
not mean 'going it.' She meant the real thing, only she did not like to
say the word. We talked about it after you had gone. She said she would
give anything to see you more like the ordinary man. And that is her
idea of the ordinary man."

Mr. Korner's sluggishness of comprehension irritated Miss Greene. She
leaned across the table and shook him. "Don't you understand? You have
done it on purpose to teach her a lesson. It is she who has got to ask
you to forgive her."

"You think--?"

"I think, if you manage it properly, it will be the best day's work
you have ever done. Get out of the house before she wakes. I shall say
nothing to her. Indeed, I shall not have the time; I must catch the
ten o'clock from Paddington. When you come home this evening, you talk
first; that's what you've got to do." And Mr. Korner, in his excitement,
kissed the bosom friend before he knew what he had done.

Mrs. Korner sat waiting for her husband that evening in the
drawing-room. She was dressed as for a journey, and about the corners
of her mouth were lines familiar to Christopher, the sight of which sent
his heart into his boots. Fortunately, he recovered himself in time to
greet her with a smile. It was not the smile he had been rehearsing half
the day, but that it was a smile of any sort astonished the words away
from Mrs. Korner's lips, and gave him the inestimable advantage of first
speech.

"Well," said Mr. Korner cheerily, "and how did you like it?"

For the moment Mrs. Korner feared her husband's new complaint had
already reached the chronic stage, but his still smiling face reassured
her--to that extent at all events.

"When would you like me to 'go it' again? Oh, come," continued Mr.
Korner in response to his wife's bewilderment, "you surely have not
forgotten the talk we had at breakfa