r
daughter, madam, I doubt not?'

'My maid,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, in a curdled kind of voice.
'Andrews, please see about the luggage. She _is_ rather a nice-looking
girl, I suppose,' she conceded, anxious to approve of all the Professor
said and did.

'Nice-looking? She is so exceedingly pretty, madam, that I could only
conclude she must be your daughter.'

This elementary application of balm at once soothed Mrs. Harvey-Browne
into a radiance of smiles perplexing in conjunction with her age and
supposed superiority to vanities. Forgetful of her objections to German
crowds and smoke she sat down in the chair vacated by Andrews, made the
Professor sit down again in his, and plunged into an exuberant
conversation, which began by an invitation so warm that it almost seemed
on fire to visit herself and the bishop before the summer was over in
the episcopal glories of Babbacombe. This much I heard as I slipped away
into the peace of the front room. Brosy came after me. To him the
picture of the Professor being wrapped about in Mrs. Harvey-Browne's
amenities was manifestly displeasing.

The front room seemed very calm and spacious after what we had just been
in. A few fishermen were drinking beer at the bar; in a corner sat
Andrews and Gertrud, beginning a necessarily inarticulate acquaintance
over the hold-alls; both window and door were open, and the rain came
down straight and steady, filling the place with a soft murmuring and
dampness. Across the clearness of my first decision that the Professor
must be an absolutely delightful person to be always with, had crept a
slight film of doubt. There were some things about him that might
possibly, I began in a dim way to see, annoy a wife. He seemed to love
Charlotte, and he had seemed to be very fond of me--anyhow, never before
had I been so much patted in so short a space of time. Yet the moment he
caught sight of the Alsatian bow he forgot my presence and existence,
forgot the fluster he had been in to get on after his wife, and attached
himself to it with a vehemence that no one could be expected to like. A
shadowy conviction began to pervade my mind that the sooner I handed him
over to Charlotte and drove on again alone the better. Surely Charlotte
_ought_ to go back to him and look after him; why should I be obliged to
drive round Ruegen first with one Nieberlein and then with the other?

'The ways of Fate are truly eccentric,' I remarked, half to myself,
going to