Glazzard murmured and nodded comprehension.

“I’ll go back to the beginning.  That was about three years ago.  I was crossing the North Sea (you remember the time; I said good-bye to you in the Academy, where your bust was), and on the boat I got into conversation with a decent kind of man who had his wife and family with him, going to settle for a time at Stockholm; a merchant of some sort.  There were three children, and they had a governess—­ Lilian, in fact, who was then not much more than eighteen.  I liked the look of her from the first.  She was very still and grave,—­the kind of thing that takes me in a woman, provided she has good features.  I managed to get a word or two with her, and I liked her way of speaking.  Well, I was sufficiently interested to say to myself that I might as well spend a week or two. at Stockholm and keep up the acquaintance of these people; Becket, their name was.  I’m not exactly the kind of fellow who goes about falling in love with nursery governesses, and at that time (perhaps you recollect?) I had somebody else in mind.  I dare say it was partly the contrast between that shark of a woman and this modest girl; at all events, I wanted to see more of Lilian, and I did I was in Stockholm, of! and on, for a couple of months.  I became good friends with the Beckets, and before coming back to England I made an offer to Miss Allen—­ that was the governess’s name.  She refused me, and I was conceited enough to wonder what the deuce she meant.”

Glazzard laughed.  He was listening with more show of interest.

“Well,” pursued Quarrier, after puffing vainly at his extinguished pipe, “there was reason for wondering.  Before I took the plunge, I had a confidential talk with Mrs. Becket, who as good as assured me that I had only to speak; in fact, she was rather angry with me for disturbing her family arrangements.  Miss Allen, I learnt from her, was an uncommonly good girl—­everything I imagined her.  Mrs. Becket didn’t know her family, but she had engaged her on the strength of excellent testimonials, which didn’t seem exaggerated.  Yet after that I was floored—­told that the thing couldn’t be.  No weeping and wailing; but a face and a voice that puzzled me.  The girl liked me well enough; I felt sure of it.  All the same I had to come back to England alone, and in a devilish bad temper.  You remember that I half quarrelled with you about something at our first meeting.”

“You were rather bearish,” remarked Glazzard, knocking the ash off his cigar.

“As I often am.  Forgive me, old fellow!”

Denzil relit his pipe.