“It is a pity that he cares for no other girls.  There’s Margaret Laidlaw, pretty, attractive, feminine, and Sarah Carew, handsome, sportive, masculine.  One would think he’d find a choice between them and they both like him.  But no, he has eyes in his head for Marcia only.  A moment ago when he was talking to them, his gaze was on the flower-garden.  Has he never cared for any other women?  Who was the girl who got inside the wall last year, Mr. Canby?”

Una!  I had forgotten her.  But I shook my head.

“I meddle no more, Miss Gore.  I’ve learned a lesson.  Jerry must work out his own salvation.”

“It’s merely a suggestion.  Think it over.”

After awhile I rose, pleading the need of exercise and begging her to make my excuses to Marcia, I set out for the Manor.  But instead of taking the longer road to the lodge gate, when I reached the wall I turned to the left into the footpath along which I had come that night with the girl Una, reaching the Sweetwater and crawling under the broken grille to the rocks where she and Jerry had met.  I sat for awhile on the brink of the stream, watching the tangling reflections in the tiny current.  Una!  Somehow the place reminded me of Una Habberton, a sanctuary for quiet thoughts; the pools below me, her eyes reflecting the clear heavens; the intonation of the rill, her voice; the cheerful birdnotes, her joy of life; the dignity of the tall trees, her sanity.  Less than a year ago I had turned her out of this garden, fearing for the boy the first woman he had seen, and to my ascetic mind because a woman, a minx.  I eyed the broken grille regretfully and then suddenly rose and started hurriedly toward the Manor, the new thought drumming in my mind.

A fool’s mission?  Perhaps, and yet I resolved to take it.  I put some things into a bag and, telling Christopher that Jerry wasn’t to expect me home that night, I caught an evening train to the city.

It was not difficult to reach her by telephone, for I found her at the house in Washington Square.  She did not recall my voice or my name, and only when I said that I had been Jerry Benham’s tutor, did she remember.  It was a personal matter, I explained, having to do with Mr. Benham, and at that she consented to see me.  I left the telephone booth at the hotel perspiring freely, aware for the first time of the awkwardness and delicacy of my undertaking.  But I dined and changed into my blue serge suit, one that I had bought upon the occasion of my last visit to town, and at half past eight presented myself in the Habberton drawing-room.  In the moments before she appeared, I sat ill at ease, my eyes taking in every detail of the well-ordered room, the cool gray walls, the family portraits, the old-fashioned ornaments upon table and mantel, aware, in spite of myself, that I was warm at the collar, impatient for the interview to begin, yet fearful for it.

I was watching the folding doors at the end of the room when she startled me by appearing silently almost at my elbow.  The lights were dim, but I could see that her face wore no smile of greeting and as I rose she did not offer me her hand.