that bein' so, if Benny hit the note for one, how could it
help bein' the note for both? . . . I've had pretty rash thoughts about
Benny: but--put it in that way--who's to blame the man? Or the woman,
for that matter?"

"I like that explanation better," said Cai.

"--Or the woman? She can't help bein' a two-headed nightingale."

"To be sure she can't. . . . We might leave it at that and say no more
about it. She'd be sure to understand in time."

"The agreement was, last night," insisted 'Bias with great firmness,
"to put it to her straight and get it over."

They resumed their walk and mounted the pathway over which--from the
first angle of the outbuildings to the garden-gate--Banksian roses hung
from the wall in heavy honey-coloured clusters of bloom. These were
scentless and already past their prime; but by the gate at the
south-east end of the house the white Banksian, throwing far wider
shoots, saluted them with a scent as of violets belated. And within the
gate the old roses were coming on with a rush--Provence and climbing
China; Moschata alba, pouring over an arch in a cascade of bloom that
hid all its green as with shell-pink foam; crimson and striped Damask
along the border; with Paul Neyron eclipsing all in size, moss-roses
bursting their gummy shells, Gloire de Dijon climbing and asserting
itself above the falsely named "pink Gloire"; Reine Marie Henriette--
which, grown by everybody, is perhaps the worst rose in the world.
Gloire de Dijon rampant smothered the pretender and covered the most of
its mildewing buds from sight; to be conquered in its turn by the sheer
beauty of Marechal Niel, whose every yellow star, bold on its stalk as
greenhouses can grow it, shamed all feebler yellows. Devoniensis flung
its sprays down from the thatch. La France and Ulrich Brunner
competed--silver rose against cherry rose--on either side of the porch.
Yet the fragrance of all these roses had to yield to that of the Cottage
flowers, mignonette, Sweet-William, lemon verbena, Brompton stocks--
annuals, biennials, perennials, intermixed--that lined the border, with
blue delphiniums and white Madonna lilies breaking into flower above
them.

Dinah, answering their ring at the bell after the usual delay for
reconnaissance, opined that her mistress would probably be found in the
new rose-garden. She said it, as they both observed, with a demure,
half-mischievous smile.

"Amused to see us in company again, I reckon,