Their hands met in the dog’s fur.  She was still crying, but she smiled up at him admiringly and appreciatively.

‘If Rose and Milly want a change any time,’ he continued, ’let ’em come over.  And we can come to Europe just as often as you feel that way ...  Eh?’

‘Why,’ she meditated, ‘cannot this last for ever?’ She felt so feminine and illogical, and the masculine, masterful rationality of his appeal touched her so intimately, that she had discovered in the woe and the indecision of her situation a kind of happiness.  And she wished to keep what she had got.  At length a certain courage and resolution visited her, and summoning all her sweetness she said to him:  ’Don’t press me, please, please!  In a fortnight I shall be in London with Milly....  Will you wait a fortnight?  Will you wait that long?  I know that what you say is—­You will wait that long, won’t you?  You’ll be in London then to meet us?’

‘God!’ he exclaimed, deeply moved by the fainting, beseeching poignancy of her voice, ’I will wait forty fortnights.  And I guess I shall be in London.’

She sank back on the reprieve as on a pillow.

‘Of course I’ll wait,’ he repeated lightly, and his tone said:  ’I understand.  Life isn’t all logic, and allowances must be made.  Women are women—­that’s what makes them so adorable—­and I’m not in a hurry.’

They did not speak further.

A moving patch of white on the path indicated Bessie.

‘If you please, ma’am, shall I set supper for five?’ she asked vivaciously in the summer darkness.

There was a silence.

‘I’m not staying, Bessie,’ said Twemlow.

‘Thank you, sir.  Come along, Bran, come kennel.’

The great beast slouched off, and left them together.

* * * * *

‘Guess who’s been!’ Leonora demanded of her girls and Fred, with feverish gaiety, when they returned from the concert.  The dining-room was very cheerful, and brightly lit; outside lay the dark garden and Bran reflective in his kennel.  No one could guess Arthur, and so Leonora had to tell.  They were surprised; and they were interested, but not for long.  Millicent was preoccupied with her successful performance at the concert; and Ethel and Fred had had a brilliant idea.  This couple were to commence married life modestly in Uncle Meshach’s house; but the place was being repaired and redecorated, and there seemed to be an annoying probability that it would not be finished for immediate occupation after the short honeymoon—­Fred could only spare ’two week-ends’ from the works.  Why should they not return on the very day when Leonora and Milly were to go to London and keep house at Hillport during Leonora’s absence?  Such was the brilliant idea, one of those domestic ideas whose manifold excellences call for interminable explanation and discussion.  The name of Arthur Twemlow was not again mentioned.