He picked up the basket as he spoke.  Chris stopped irresolute.  Her husband was already moving away over the grass.

“Come!” said Bertrand persuasively.

Chris turned with a smile and took the basket.  “All right, Bertie, let’s go.  It is getting late, as you say, and I must get the vases filled.”

They went away together to the rose-garden, and here, after brief hesitation, Chris voiced her fears.

“I’m so afraid lest Trevor should ever get really angry with any of the boys.  They won’t stand it, you know.  And he—­I sometimes think he is just a little hard, don’t you?”

Mordaunt’s secretary pondered this proposition with drawn brows.  “No,” he said finally, “he is not hard, but he is very honourable.”

Chris laughed aloud.  “That sounds just like a French exercise, Bertie.  I don’t see what being honourable has to do with it, except that the people who preen themselves on being honourable are just the ones who can’t make allowances for those who are not.  You would think, wouldn’t you, that being good would make people extra kind and forgiving?  But it doesn’t, you know.  Look at Aunt Philippa!”

Bertrand’s grimace was expressive.  “And Aunt Philippa is good, yes?”

“Frightfully good,” said Chris.  “I don’t suppose she ever told a story in her life.”

His quick eyes sought hers.  “And that—­that is to be good?”

Chris paused an instant, her attention caught by the question.  “Why, I suppose so,” she said slowly.  “Don’t you call that goodness?”

He spread out his hands.  “Me, I think it is the smallest kind of goodness.  One does not lie, one does not steal; but what of that?  One does not roll oneself in the mud.  And that is a virtue, that?”

Chris became keenly interested.  “Do go on, Bertie!  I had no idea you thought such a lot.  I don’t myself—­often.”

He laughed, his sudden pleasant laugh that he uttered now so rarely.  “But I am no philosopher,” he said.  “Simply I think—­a little—­sometimes.  And to me—­to be honourable is no more a virtue than to wash the hands.  One cannot do otherwise and respect oneself.”

“No?” said Chris, a little dubiously.  “Then, Bertie, if honour is not goodness, what is?”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “Goodness?  Bah!  There is no goodness without love.”

“Oh!” Chris’s eyes opened wide.  “You think—­that?”

He nodded with vehemence. “Si, cherie!  I think—­that; more, I know it.  I know that ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law.’  One does not need to go further than that.  It is enough, no?” His eyes looked straight into hers; they were shining with the light that only friendship can kindle.

She smiled back at him.  “I should almost think it is, Bertie.  It is enough for you anyhow, since you believe it.”

“Ah, yes,” he said very earnestly.  “I believe it, Christine.  I should not be here now—­if I did not believe it.”