“I’m not surprised that your church was so full on Sunday,” Errington told him, “now that I’ve met you.  If the Church of England clergy, as a whole, were as human as you are, you would have fewer offshoots from your Established Church.  I always think”—­reminiscently—­“that that is where the strength of the Roman Catholic padre lies—­in his intense humanness.”

The Sector looked up in surprise.

“Then you’re not a member of our Church?” he asked.

For a moment Errington looked embarrassed, as though he had said more than he wished to.

“Oh, I was merely comparing the two,” he replied evasively.  “I have lived abroad a good bit, you know.”

“Ah!  That explains it, then,” said Stair.  “You’ve caught some little foreign turns of speech.  Several times I’ve wondered if you were entirely English.”

Errington’s face, as he turned to reply, wore that politely blank expression which Diana had encountered more than once when conversing with him—­always should she chance to touch on any subject the natural answer to which might have revealed something of the man’s private life.

“Oh,” he answered the Rector lightly, “I believe there’s a dash of foreign blood in my veins, but I’ve a right to call myself an Englishman.”

After dinner, while the two men had their smoke, Diana, heedless of Joan’s common-sense remonstrance on the score of dew-drenched grass, flung on a cloak and wandered restlessly out into the moonlit garden.  She felt that it would be an utter impossibility to sit still, waiting until the men came into the drawing-room, and she paced slowly backwards and forwards across the lawn, a slight, shadowy figure in the patch of silver light.

Presently she saw the French window of the dining-room open, and Max Errington step across the threshold and come swiftly over the lawn towards her.

“I see you are bent on courting rheumatic fever—­to say nothing of a sore throat,” he said quietly, “and I’ve come to take you indoors.”

Diana was instantly filled with a perverse desire to remain where she was.

“I’m not in the least cold, thank you,” she replied stiffly, “And—­I like it out here.”

“You may not be cold,” he returned composedly.  “But I’m quite sure your feet are damp.  Come along.”

He put his arm under hers, impelling her gently in the direction of the house, and, rather to her own surprise, she found herself accompanying him without further opposition.

Arrived at the house, he knelt down and, taking up her foot in his hand, deliberately removed the little pointed slipper.

“There,” he said conclusively, exhibiting its sole, dank with dew.  “Go up and put on a pair of dry shoes and then come down and sing to me.”

And once again she found herself meekly obeying him.

By the time she had returned to the drawing-room, Pobs and Errington were choosing the songs they wanted her to sing, while Joan was laughingly protesting that they had selected all those with the most difficult accompaniments.