“Hyde Park is bringing me illusions to-night,” said Daventry.  “That water might be the Vistula.  If I heard a wolf howling over there near the ranger’s lodge, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

A lifeguardsman, in a red cloak, and a woman drifted away over the frost among the trees.

“I love Mrs. Clarke as a client, but perhaps I love her even more because, through her, I hope to get hold of something I’ve—­I’ve let drop,” continued Daventry.

“What’s that?”

Daventry put his arm through Dion’s.

“I don’t know whether I can name it even to you; but it’s something a man of great intelligence, such as myself, should always keep in his fist.”

He paused.

“The clergy are apt to call it self-respect,” he at length added, in a dry voice.

Dion pressed his arm.

“Bruce Evelin wants you to marry Beatrice.”

“He hasn’t told you so?”

“No, except by taking the trouble to force you to work.”

Daventry stood still.

“I’m going to ask her—­almost directly.”

“Come on, Guy, or we shall have all the blackbirds round us.  Look over there.”

Not far off, among the trees, two slinking and sinister shadows of men seemed to be intent upon them.

“Isn’t it incredible to practise the profession of a blackmailer out of doors on a night like this?” said Dion.  “D’you remember when we were in the night train coming from Burstal?  You had a feather that night.”

“Damn it!  Why rake up—?”

“And I said how wonderful it would be if some day I were married to Rosamund.”

“Is it wonderful?”

“Yes.”

“Very wonderful?”

“Yes.”

“Children too!”

Daventry sighed.

“One wants to be worthy of it all,” he murmured.  “And then”—­he laughed, as if calling in his humor to save him from something—­“the children, in their turn, feel they would like to live up to papa.  Dion, people can be caught in the net of goodness very much as they can be caught in the net of evil.  Let us praise the stars for that.”

They arrived at the bridge.  The wide road, which looked to-night extraordinarily clean, almost as if it had been polished up for the passing of some delicate procession in the night, was empty.  There were no vehicles going by; the night-birds kept among the trees.  The quarter after eleven chimed from some distant church.  Dion thought of Rosamund, as he paused on the bridge, thought of himself as a husband yielding his wife up to the solitude she evidently desired.  He took Daventry for his companion; she had the child for hers.  There was suffering of a kind even in a very perfect marriage, but what he had told Daventry was true; it had been very wonderful.  He had learnt a great deal in his marriage, dear lessons of high-mindedness in desire, of purity in possession.  If Rosamund were to be cut off from him even to-night