“Better men have taken the half-loaf.”

“Gordon!” she exclaimed, scarlet with amazement and indignation.

“Personally,” he said, unperturbed, “I haven’t much sympathy with such affairs.  If a man can’t marry a girl he ought to leave her alone; that’s my idea of the game.  But men play it in a variety of ways.  Personally, I’d as soon plug a loaded shot-gun with mud and then fire it, as block a man who wants to marry.”

“I did block it!” said Lily with angry decision; “and I am glad I did.”

“Look out for the explosion then,” he said philosophically, and strolled off to see to the setting out of some young hemlocks, headed in the year previous.

Lily Collis was deeply disturbed—­more deeply than her pride and her sophistication cared to admit.  She strove to believe that such a horror as her husband had hinted at so coolly could never happen to a Neville; she rejected it with anger, with fear, with a proud and dainty fastidiousness that ought to have calmed and reassured her.  It did not.

Once or twice she reverted to the subject, haughtily; but Gordon merely shrugged: 

“You can’t teach a man of twenty-eight when, where, and how to fall in love,” he said.  “And it’s all the more hopeless when the girl possesses the qualities which you once told me this girl possesses.”

Lily bit her lip, angry and disconcerted, but utterly unable to refute him or find anything in her memory of Valerie to criticise and condemn, except the intimacy with her brother which had continued and which, she had supposed, would cease on Valerie’s promise to her.

“It’s very horrid of her to go about with him under the circumstances—­knowing she can’t marry him if she keeps her word,” said Lily.

“Why?  Stephanie goes about with him.”

“Do you think it is good taste to compare those two people?”

“Why not.  From what you told me I gather that Valerie West is as innocent and upright a woman as Stephanie—­and as proudly capable of self-sacrifice as any woman who ever loved.”

“Gordon,” she said, exasperated, “do you actually wish to see my brother marry a common model?”

“Is she common?  I thought you said—­”

“You—­you annoy me,” said Lily; and began to cry.

Stephanie, coming into the nursery that afternoon, found Lily watching the sleeping children and knitting a tiny sweater.  Mrs. Collis was pale, but her eyes were still red.

“Where have you been, Stephanie?”

“Helping Gordon set hemlocks.”

“Where is Louis?”

The girl did not appear to hear the question.

“I thought I heard him telephoning a few minutes ago,” added Lily.  “Look over the banisters, dear, and see if he’s still there.”

“He is,” said Stephanie, not stirring.

“Telephoning all this time?  Is he talking to somebody in town?”

“I believe so.”