“H’m, yes; he struck me as being an unusually nice chap,” said Mr. Woods, untruthfully.  “I dare say they’ll be very happy.”

“Who?” Mrs. Saumarez demanded.

“Why—­er—­I don’t suppose they’ll make any secret of it,” Billy stammered, in tardy repentance of his hasty speaking.  “Peggy told me last night she had accepted him.”

Mrs. Saumarez turned to rearrange a bowl of roses.  She seemed to have some difficulty over it.

“Billy,” she spoke, inconsequently, and with averted head, “an honest man is the noblest work of God—­and the rarest.”

Billy groaned.

“Do you know,” said he, “I’ve just been telling the roses in the gardens yonder the same thing about women?  I’m a misogynist this morning.  I’ve decided no woman is worthy of being loved.”

“That is quite true,” she assented, “but, on the other hand, no man is worthy of loving.”

Billy smiled.

“I’ve likewise come to the conclusion,” said he, “that a man’s love is like his hat, in that any peg will do to hang it on; also, in that the proper and best place for it is on his own head.  Oh, I assure you, I vented any number of cheap cynicisms on the helpless roses!  And yet—­will you believe it, Kathleen?—­it doesn’t seem to make me feel a bit better—­no, not a bit.”

“It’s very like his hat,” she declared, “in that he has a new one every year.”  Then she rested her hand on his, in a half-maternal fashion.  “What’s the matter, boy?” she asked, softly.  “You’re always so fresh and wholesome.  I don’t like to see you like this.  Better leave phrase-making to us phrase-mongers.”

Her voice rang true—­true, and compassionate, and tender, and all that a woman’s voice should be.  Billy could not but trust her.

“I’ve been an ass,” said he, rather tragically.  “Oh, not an unusual ass, Kathleen—­just the sort men are always making of themselves.  You see, before I went to France, there was a girl I—­cared for.  And I let a quarrel come between us—­a foolish, trifling, idle little quarrel, Kathleen, that we might have made up in a half-hour.  But I was too proud, you see.  No, I wasn’t proud, either,” Mr. Woods amended, bitterly; “I was simply pig-headed and mulish.  So I went away.  And yesterday I saw her again and realised that I—­still cared.  That’s all, Kathleen.  It isn’t an unusual story.”  And Mr. Woods laughed, mirthlessly, and took a turn on the terrace.

Mrs. Saumarez was regarding him intently.  Her cheeks were of a deeper, more attractive pink, and her breath came and went quickly.

“I—­I don’t understand,” she said, in a rather queer voice.