urpose.

But Dudley turned away, and either did not see or did not choose to
notice the pause. Then the tears sprang to the girl's eyes, and she ran
quickly to the door.

"Come, Mr. Lindsay," said she, "we must make haste. At this stage of
things, every minute has to be weighed out like gold, I assure you."

She went quickly out into the large hall, and the curate followed with
alacrity. Max and his mother were engaged in a wrangle over some soup
and coal tickets which somebody had mislaid, and in the search for which
the whole room, with its parcels and bundles, had to be overturned.

Queenie, who was at work at the end of the room, near the window,
uttered a short laugh. Dudley, who was standing a little way off, drew
nearer, and asked what she was laughing at.

"Oh, that misguided youth who has just gone out!"

"Misguided?"

"Yes," said Queenie, shortly. "If he hadn't been misguided, he would
have devoted his attention to me, not to Doreen. By all the laws of
society, curates' wives should be plain. They should also be simple in
their dress, and devoted to good works. Doreen says so herself. Why,
then, didn't he see that I was the wife for him and not the beauty?"

"Don't you think she will have him, then?" asked Dudley, very stiffly,
after a short pause. "She seems to like him. There was no need, surely,
for her to have been in such a hurry to take him into the grounds, if
she had felt no particular pleasure in his society."

Queenie looked up rather slyly out of her little light eyes. She was
distressed on account of her sister's trouble about this apparently
vacillating lover, and irritated herself by his strange conduct. But at
the bottom of her heart she believed in him and in his affection for
Doreen, just as her sister herself did, and she would have given the
world to make things right between two people whom she chose to believe
intended by nature for each other.

"I think there are other people in the world whose society Doreen likes
better," she said at last, below her breath.

The wrangle at the other end of the room was still going on, and nobody
heard her but Dudley. He flushed slightly and looked as if he
understood. But he instantly turned the talk to another subject.

"Would you have liked that sleek curate yourself, really?"

"Sleek? What do you mean by sleek? You wouldn't have a minister of the
church go about with long hair and a velveteen coat and a pipe in his
mouth, would you?"