“Perhaps she has a secret sentiment for the rector?” he suggested, to pique her.

“But I don’t believe he will marry anybody around here,” she insisted, while the colour flooded her face.

The discovery that she had once cherished—­that she still cherished, perhaps, a regard for the young clergyman, added a zest to the adventure, while it freed his passion from the single restraint of which he had been aware.  It was not in his nature to encourage a chivalrous desire to protect a woman who had betrayed, however innocently, a sentiment for another man.  When the Reverend Mr. Mullen inadvertently introduced an emotional triangle, he had changed the situation from one of mere sentimental dalliance into direct pursuit.  By some law of reflex action, known only to the male mind at such instants, the first sign that she was not to be won threw him into the mental attitude of the chase.

“Are the fascinations of your Mr. Mullen confined to the pulpit?” he inquired after a moment, “or does he wear them for the benefit of the heterodox when he walks abroad?”

“Oh, he’s not my Mr. Mullen, sir,” she hastened to explain though her words trailed off into a sound that was suspiciously like a sigh.

“Molly Merryweather’s Mr. Mullen, then?”

“I don’t think he cares for Molly—­not in that way.”

“Are you quite as sure that Molly doesn’t care for him in that way?”

“She couldn’t or she wouldn’t be so cruel.  Then she never goes to lectures or Bible classes or mission societies.  She is the only girl in the congregation who never makes him anything to wear.  Don’t you think,” she asked anxiously, “that if she really cared about him she would have done some of these things?”

“From my observation of ladies and clergymen,” replied Gay seriously, “I should think that she would most likely have done all of them.”

She appeared relieved, he thought, by the warmth of his protestation.  Actually Mr. Mullen had contributed a decided piquancy to the episode.

“I’m afraid, Blossom,” he said after a moment, “that I am beginning to be a little jealous of the Reverend Mullen.  By the way, what is the Christian name of the paragon?”

“Orlando, sir.”

“Ye Gods!  The horror grows!  Describe him to me, but paint him mildly if you wish me to survive it.”

For a minute she thought very hard, as though patiently striving to invoke a mental image.

“He’s a little taller than you, but not quite—­not quite so broad.”

“Thank you, you have put it mildly.”

“He has the most beautiful curly hair—­real chestnut—­that grows in two peaks high on his forehead.  His eyes are grey and his mouth is small, with the most perfect teeth.  He doesn’t wear any moustache, you see, to hide them, and they flash a great deal when he preaches—–­”

“Hold on!”

“I beg you pardon, sir.”

“I mean that I am overcome.  I am mentally prostrated before such perfections.  Blossom, you are in love with him.”