“Oh, no!  I’ll go by train.”

“You’ll do as you’re told, young woman, and go by car.”

At this rubbishy speech, the tears, for the first time, came into her eyes.  She pulled down my shoulders—­I am rather lank and tall—­and kissed me.

“You’re a dear,” she said, and went off in search of Barbara.

I returned to my library, rang the bell, and gave orders for the chauffeur to stand at Mrs. Boldero’s disposal.  Then I sat down at a loose end, very much like a young professional man, doctor or estate-agent, waiting for the next client.  And like the young professional man at a loose end, I made a pretence of looking through papers.  Presently I became aware that I only had to open a window in order to summon a couple of clients at once.  For there in the gathering November dusk and in the rain—­it had ceased pouring, but it was drizzling, and therefore it was rain—­I saw our pair of delectable savages strolling across the wet, sodden lawn, in loverlike proximity, for all the world as though it were a flowery mead in May.  I might have summoned them, but it would have been an unprofessional thing to do.  Instead, I drew my curtains and turned on the light, and continued to wait.  I waited a long time.  At last Barbara rushed in.

“Doria’s ready.”

“You’ve heard all about it?” She nodded.  “I said there would be no marriage,” I remarked blandly.

“You said she wouldn’t marry him.  I said she would.  And so she would, if he had let her.  I know you’re prepared to argue,” she said, rather excitedly, “but it’s no use.  I was right all the time.”

I yielded.

“You’re always right, my dear,” said I.

* * * * *

That is practically all, up to the present, that I have to tell you about Jaffery.  What words passed between him and Liosha in the drawing-room I have never known.  Jaffery, with conscience still sore, and childishly anxious that I should not account him a traitor and a scoundrel, and a brute too despicable for human touch, told me, as I have already stated, over and over again, until I yawned for weariness in the small hours of the morning, what had taken place in his staggering interview with Doria; but as regards Liosha, he was shyly evasive.  After all, I fancy, it was a very simple affair.  She had told me bluntly that when the two men, Jaffery and Prescott, rode into the scene of Balkan desolation in which she was the central figure, Jaffery was the one who caused her heart to throb.  And in her chaste, proud way she had loved him ever since that extraordinary moment.  And though Jaffery has never confessed it, I am absolutely certain that, just as Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose, sans le savoir, so, without knowing it, was Jaffery in love with Liosha when she drove away from Northlands in Mr. Ras Fendihook’s car.  Perhaps before. Quien sabe? But he imagined himself to be in love with a moonbeam.  And the moonbeam shot like a glamorous, enchanted sword between him and Liosha, and kept them apart until the moment of dazed revelation, when he saw that the moonbeam was merely a pale, earnest, anxious, suffering little human thing, alien to his every instinct, a firmament away, in every vital essential, from the goddess of his idolatry.