“Not much longer.  I met him first in London.”

“But you know him through your husband.  I only wish to ask you whether you have a high opinion of him.  How has he impressed you from the first?”

Lilian reflected for an instant, and spoke with grave conscientiousness.

“My husband considers him his best friend.  He thinks very highly of him.  They are unlike each other in many things.  Mr. Quarrier sometimes wishes that he—­that Mr. Glazzard were more active, less absorbed in art; but I have never heard him say anything worse than that.  He likes him very much indeed.  They have been friends since boyhood.”

The listener sat with bowed head, and there was a brief silence.

“Then you think,” she said at length, “that I shall be quite safe in —­Oh, that is a bad way of putting it!  Do forgive me for talking to you like this.  You, Mrs. Quarrier, are very happily married; but I am sure you can sympathize with a girl’s uncertainty.  We have so few opportunities of——­Oh, it was so true what Mr. Quarrier said in his lecture at the Institute—­before you came.  He said that a girl had to take her husband so very much on trust—­of course his words were better than those, but that’s what he meant.”

“Yes—­I know—­I have heard him say the same thing.”

“I don’t ask,” pursued the other, quickly, “about his religious opinions, or anything of that kind.  Nowadays, I suppose, there are very few men who believe as women do—­as most women do.”  She glanced at Lilian timidly.  “I only mean—­do you think him a good man—­an honourable man?”

“To that I can reply with confidence,” said Lilian, sweetly.  “I am quite sure he is an honourable man—­quite sure I believe he has very high thoughts.  Have you heard him play?  No man who hadn’t a noble nature could play like that.”

Serena drew a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, dear Mrs. Quarrier—­thank you so very much!  You have put my mind at rest.”

These words gave delight to the hearer.  To do good and to receive gratitude were all but the prime necessities of Lilian’s heart.  Obeying her impulse, she began to say all manner of kind, tender, hopeful things.  Was there not a similarity between this girl’s position and that in which she had herself stood when consenting to the wretched marriage which happily came to an end at the church door?  Another woman might have been disposed to say, in the female parrot-language:  “But do you love him or not?  That is the whole question.”  It was not the whole question, even granting that love had spoken plainly; and Lilian understood very well that it is possible for a girl to contemplate wedlock without passionate feeling such as could obscure her judgment.

They talked with much intimacy, much reciprocal good-will, and Serena took her leave with a comparatively cheerful mind.  She had resolved what to do.

And the opportunity for action came that afternoon.  Glazzard called upon her.  He looked rather gloomy, but smiled in reply to the smile she gave him.