with resentment.'

'No--indeed--I didn't intend it.'

Monica reddened a little.

'Nothing more natural if you have done. At your age, I should have
resented it.'

'But--' the girl hesitated--'don't you approve of any one marrying?'

'Oh, I'm not so severe! But do you know that there are half a million
more women than men in this happy country of ours?'

'Half a million!'

Her naive alarm again excited Rhoda to laughter.

'Something like that, they say. So many _odd_ women--no making a pair
with them. The pessimists call them useless, lost, futile lives. I,
naturally--being one of them myself--take another view. I look upon
them as a great reserve. When one woman vanishes in matrimony, the
reserve offers a substitute for the world's work. True, they are not
all trained yet--far from it. I want to help in that--to train the
reserve.'

'But married woman are not idle,' protested Monica earnestly.

'Not all of them. Some cook and rock cradles.'

Again Miss Nunn's mood changed. She laughed the subject away, and
abruptly began to talk of old days down in Somerset, of rambles about
Cheddar Cliffs, or at Glastonbury, or on the Quantocks. Monica,
however, could not listen, and with difficulty commanded her face to a
pleasant smile.

'Will you come and see Miss Barfoot?' Rhoda asked, when it had become
clear to her that the girl would gladly get away. 'I am only her
subordinate, but I know she will wish to be of all the use to you she
can.'

Monica expressed her thanks, and promised to act as soon as possible on
any invitation that was sent her. She took leave just as the servant
announced another caller.

CHAPTER V

THE CASUAL ACQUAINTANCE

At that corner of Battersea Park which is near Albert Bridge there has
lain for more than twenty years a curious collection of architectural
fragments, chiefly dismembered columns, spread in order upon the
ground, and looking like portions of a razed temple. It is the
colonnade of old Burlington House, conveyed hither from Piccadilly who
knows why, and likely to rest here, the sporting ground for adventurous
infants, until its origin is lost in the abyss of time.

It was at this spot that Monica had agreed to meet with her casual
acquaintance, Edmund Widdowson, and there, from a distance, she saw his
lank, upright, well-dressed figure moving backwards and forwards upon
the grass. Even at the last moment Monica doubted whether to approach.
Emotional interest in