time he had dined in Thurston Square since the scandal. Was it
possible that he did not realise the insufferable nature of that
incident, the efforts it must have cost to tolerate him, the points that
had been stretched to take him in? She felt that it was impossible to
exaggerate the essential solemnity of that evening. They had met
together, as it were, to celebrate Walter's return to the sanctities
and proprieties he had offended. He had been formally forgiven and
received by the society which (however Fanny Eliott might explain away
its action) had most unmistakably cast him out. She had not expected him
to part with his indomitable self-possession under the ordeal, but she
could have wished that he had borne himself with a little more modesty.
He had failed to perceive the redemptive character of the feast, he had
turned it into an occasion for profane personal display.

Mrs. Eliott's dinner-party had not saved him; on the contrary, he had
saved the dinner-party.

CHAPTER VIII

Anne was right. Though Majendie was, as he expressed it, "up to her
designs upon his unhappy soul," he remained unconscious of the part to be
played by Mrs. Eliott and her circle in the scheme of his salvation. From
his observation of the aristocracy of Thurston Square, it would never
have occurred to him that they were people who could count, whichever way
you looked at them.

Meanwhile he was a little disturbed by his own appearance as a heavenward
pilgrim. He was not sure that he had not gone a little too far that way,
and he felt that it was a shame to allow Anne to take him seriously.

He confided his scruples to Edith.

"Poor dear," he said, "it's quite pathetic. You know, she thinks she's
saving me."

"And do you mind being saved?"

"Well, no, I don't mind a little of it. But the question is, how long I
can keep it up."

"You mean, how long she'll keep it up?"

He laughed. "Oh, she'll keep it up for ever. No possible doubt about
that. She'll never tire. I wonder if I ought to tell her."

"Tell her what?"

"That it won't work. That she can't do it that way. She's wasting my time
and her own."

"Oh, what's a little time, dear, when you've all eternity in view?"

"But I haven't. I've nothing in view. My view, at present, is entirely
obscured by Anne."

"Poor Anne! To think she actually stands between you and your Maker."

"Yes, you know--in her very anxiety to introduce us."

They looked at each other. Her s