refractory lovers,
not without a suggestion of having in her youth played a leading part in
some such drama.

"Well--I'm on his side. P'r'aps that's not the right way to put it; I
suppose I ought to say _their_ side. Meaning, the young people's, of
course! Yes, exactly."

"One always takes part against the stern parent." The humour of this
received a tributary laugh. "But do you really think Philippa wrong,
Mr. Pellew? I must say she seems to me only reasonable. The whole thing
was so absurdly sudden."

Mr. Pellew was selecting a cigar--why does one prefer smoking the best
one first?--and was too absorbed to think of anything but "Dessay!" as
an answer. His choice completed, he could and did postpone actually
striking a match to ask briefly:--"Think anything'll come of it?"

Miss Dickenson, being a lady and non-smoker, could converse
consecutively, as usual. "Come of what, Mr. Pellew? Do you mean come of
sending Gwen to London to be out of the young man's way, or come of ...
come of the ... the love-affair?"

"Well--whichever you like! Either--both!" The cigar, being lighted, drew
well, and the smoker was able to give serious attention. "What do you
suppose will be the upshot?"

"Impossible to say! Just look at all the circumstances. She sees him
first of all for five minutes in the Park, and then he gets shot. Then
she sees him when he's supposed to be dead, just long enough to find out
that he's alive. Then she doesn't see him for a fortnight--or was it
three weeks? Then she sees him and finds out that his eyesight is
destroyed...."

"That's not certain."

"Perhaps not. We'll hope not. She finds out--what she finds out, suppose
we say! Then they get left alone at the piano the whole of the
afternoon, and ..."

"And all the fat was in the fire?"

"What a coarse and unfeeling way of putting it, Mr. Pellew!"

"Well--_I_ saw it was, the moment I came into the room. So did you, Miss
Dickenson! Don't deny it."

"I certainly had an impression they had been precipitate."

"Exactly. Cut along!"

"And then, you know, he was to have gone home next day, and didn't. He
was really here four days after that; and, of course, all that time it
got worse."

"_They_ got worse?"

"I was referring to their infatuation. It comes to the same thing.
Anyhow, there was plenty of time for it, or for them--which ever one
calls it--to get up to fever-heat. Four days is plenty, at their time of
life. But the question is, will