“You are beginning to see that it is impossible—­this Freddie foolishness.”

“It is not foolishness,” said Aline pettishly, tears of annoyance in her eyes.  “And I wish you wouldn’t call him Freddie.”

“He asked me to.  He asked me to!”

Aline stamped her foot.

“Well, never mind.  Please don’t do it.”

“Very well, little girl,” said George softly.  “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

The fact that it never even occurred to George Emerson he was being offensively patronizing shows the stern stuff of which these supermen are made.

* * *

The Efficient Baxter bicycled broodingly to Market Blandings for tobacco.  He brooded for several reasons.  He had just seen Aline Peters and George Emerson in confidential talk on the upper terrace, and that was one thing which exercised his mind, for he suspected George Emerson.  He suspected him nebulously as a snake in the grass; as an influence working against the orderly progress of events concerning the marriage that had been arranged and would shortly take place between Miss Peters and the Honorable Frederick Threepwood.

It would be too much to say that he had any idea that George was putting in such hard and consistent work in his serpentine role; indeed if he could have overheard the conversation just recorded it is probable that Rupert Baxter would have had heart failure; but he had observed the intimacy between the two as he observed most things in his immediate neighborhood, and he disapproved of it.  It was all very well to say that George Emerson had known Aline Peters since she was a child.  If that was so, then in the opinion of the Efficient Baxter he had known her quite long enough and ought to start making the acquaintance of somebody else.

He blamed the Honorable Freddie.  If the Honorable Freddie had been a more ardent lover he would have spent his time with Aline, and George Emerson would have taken his proper place as one of the crowd at the back of the stage.  But Freddie’s view of the matter seemed to be that he had done all that could be expected of a chappie in getting engaged to the girl, and that now he might consider himself at liberty to drop her for a while.

So Baxter, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, brooded on Freddie, Aline Peters and George Emerson.  He also brooded on Mr. Peters and Ashe Marson.  Finally he brooded in a general way, because he had had very little sleep the past week.

The spectacle of a young man doing his duty and enduring considerable discomforts while doing it is painful; but there is such uplift in it, it affords so excellent a moral picture, that I cannot omit a short description of the manner in which Rupert Baxter had spent the nights which had elapsed since his meeting with Ashe in the small hours in the hall.