“Perfectly.”

“I don’t care about him, he is so superficial, and Miss Barker says he is very lethargic in conversation.  I asked him because—­don’t breathe a word of it—­but because, as a married woman, one ought to help others, and—­do you remember how he stood up for Hester that night in London?”

“For her book, you mean.”

“Well, it’s all one.  Men are men, my dear.  Let me tell you he would never have done that if he had not been in love with her.”

“Do you mean that men never defend obvious truths unless they are in love?”

“Now you are pretending to misunderstand me,” said Sybell, joyously, making her little squirrel face into a becoming pout.  “But it’s no use trying to take me in.  And it’s coming right.  He’s there at this moment!”

“At the Vicarage?”

“Where else?  I asked him to go.  I urged him.  I said I felt sure she expected him.  One must help on these things.”

“But if he is obtuse and lethargic and superficial, is he likely to suit Hester?”

“My dear, the happiest lot for a woman is marriage.  And you and I are Hester’s friends.  So we ought to do all we can for her happiness.  That is why I just mentioned this.”

The dressing-gong began to boom.

“I must fly,” said Sybell, depositing a butterfly kiss on Rachel’s forehead.  And she flew.

“I wish I knew what I felt about him,” said Rachel to herself.  “I don’t much like hearing him called obtuse and superficial, but I suppose I should like still less to hear Sybell praise him.  I have never heard her praise anything but mediocrity yet.”

If Rachel had been at all introspective she might have found a clew as to her feeling for Hugh in the unusual care with which she arranged her hair, and her decision at the last moment to discard the pale-green gown lying in state on the bed for a white satin one embroidered at long intervals with rose-colored carnations.  The gown was a masterpiece, designed especially for her by a great French milliner.  Rachel often wondered whose eyesight had been strained over those marvellous carnations, but to-night she did not give them a thought.  She looked with grave dissatisfaction at her pale, nondescript face and nondescript hair and eyes.  She did not know that only women with marriageable daughters saw her as she saw herself in the glass.

As she left her room a door opened at the farther end of the same wing, and a tall man came out.  The middle-class element in her said, “Superfine.”  His fastidious taste said, “A plain woman.”

In another instant they recognized each other.

“Superfine!  What nonsense,” she thought, as she met his eager, tremulous glance.

“A plain woman.  Rachel plain!” He had met the welcome in her eyes, and there was beauty in every movement, grace in every fold of her white gown.

As they met the gong suddenly boomed out close beneath them, and they could only smile at each other as they shook hands.  The butler, who was evidently an artist in his way, proved the gong to the uttermost; and they had descended the staircase together, and had crossed the hall before its dying tremors allowed them to speak.