at any time," Lady Gore said.

"It is so good of you," he answered, in the tone of one who is thinking
of the next thing he is going to say. There was a silence.

"I hope you enjoyed yourself at Maidenhead?" said Lady Gore.

"Very, very much," Rendel answered with an air of penetrated conviction.
There was another pause. Then he suddenly said, "Lady Gore----" and
stopped.

She waited a moment, then said gently, "Yes, I know. Rachel has been
telling me."

"She has! Oh, I am so glad," Rendel said. Then he added, finding
apparently an extreme difficulty in speaking at all, "And--and--do you
mind?"

"That is a modest way of putting it," said Lady Gore, smiling. "No, I
don't mind. I am glad."

"Are you really?" said Rendel, looking as if his life depended on the
answer. "Do you mean that you really think you--you--could be on my
side? Then it will come all right."

"I will be on your side, certainly," said Lady Gore; "but I don't know
that that is the essential thing. I am not, after all, the person whose
consent matters most."

"Do you know, I believe you are," Rendel said. "I verily believe that at
this moment you come before any one else in the world." There was no
need to say in whose estimation, or to mention Rachel's name.

"Well, perhaps at this moment, as you say," said Lady Gore, "it is
possible, but there is no reason why it should go on always."

"She is absolutely devoted to you," Rendel said.

"Rachel has a fund," her mother said, "of loyal devotion, of unswerving
affection, which makes her a very precious possession."

"I have seen it," said Rendel. "Her devotion to you and her father is
one of the most beautiful things in the world, even though...."

"Even...?" said Lady Gore, with a smile.

"Did she tell you what she said to me this morning?"

"I gathered, yes," Lady Gore replied, "both what you had said and her
answer."

"I didn't take it as an answer," said Rendel. "I thought that I would
come straight to you and ask you to help me, and that you would
understand, as you always do, in the way that nobody else does."

"Take care," said Lady Gore smiling, "that you don't blindly accept
Rachel's view of her surroundings."

"Oh, it is not only Rachel who has taught me that," said Rendel, his
heart very full. "It is you yourself, and your sympathy. I wonder," he
went on quickly, "if you know what it has meant to me? You see, it is
not as if I had ever known anything of the sort before. To