ho led the crusade. He had given up his polo, he was
spending all his leave at Little Beeding and most of it with Stella
Ballantyne. He lent her a horse and rode with her in the morning, he
rowed her on the river in the afternoon. He bullied his friends to call
on her. He brandished his friendship with her like a flag. Love me, love
my Stella was his new motto. Mrs. Pettifer drove home with every fear
exaggerated. Dick's career would be ruined altogether--even if nothing
worse were to happen. To any view that Stella Ballantyne might hold she
hardly gave a thought. She was sure of what it would be. Stella
Ballantyne would jump at her nephew. He had good looks, social position,
money and a high reputation. It was the last quality which would give him
a unique value in Stella Ballantyne's eyes. He was not one of the
chinless who haunt the stage doors; nor again one of that more subtly
decadent class which seeks to attract sensation by linking itself to
notoriety. No. From Stella's point of view Dick Hazlewood must be the
ideal husband.

Mrs. Pettifer waited for her husband's return that evening with unusual
impatience, but she was wise enough to hold her tongue until dinner was
over and he with a cigar between his lips and a glass of old brandy on
the table-cloth in front of him, disposed to amiability and concession.

Then, however, she related her troubles.

"You see it must be stopped, Robert."

Robert Pettifer was a lean wiry man of fifty-five whose brown dried face
seemed by a sort of climatic change to have taken on the colour of the
binding of his law-books. He, too, was a little troubled by the story,
but he was of a fair and cautious mind.

"Stopped?" he said. "How? We can't arrest Mrs. Ballantyne again."

"No," replied Mrs. Pettifer. "Robert, you must do something."

Robert Pettifer jumped in his chair.

"I, Margaret! Lord love you, no! I decline to mix myself up in the matter
at all. Dick's a grown man and Mrs. Ballantyne has been acquitted."

Margaret Pettifer knew her husband.

"Is that your last word?" she asked ruefully.

"Absolutely."

"It isn't mine, Robert."

Robert Pettifer chuckled and laid a hand upon his wife's.

"I know that, Margaret."

"We are going to dine next Friday night at Little Beeding to meet Stella
Ballantyne."

Mr. Pettifer was startled but he held his tongue.

"The invitation came this morning after you had left for London,"
she added.

"And you accepted it at once