half-hoop of diamonds and sapphires which decorated the third finger of her left hand, of her five feet two inches of maturity.

"What will you do, then?" she asked. "Father, I think, suggested that you should stay with us; but-" "Don't you trouble about that," answered the young man, grinning hideously and almost paternally, as if he were patting her hand and setting everything right. "I came down by motor-bike; and when I passed through the village I noticed a pretty little inn. The Crown, isn't it? I'll just get a room there, and come back, if I may, when Mr. Pearson returns."

small event in the world's history from which crises have developed. Annie officious Annie, the Pearsons' maid of all work-dropped something tinkling in the passage outside the door, and a moment later came blundering into the room bearing the best tea-tray, upon which, like lightning, she must have set the best tea-things as soon as the stranger had been admitted.

"Oh!" said Millicent quickly. And then, confronted by Fate, she added: "You'll have a cup of tea, Mr. Domayne? After your long ride . . .”

The Gargoyle was again distorted by that recurrent smile. It became almost handsome with delight.

"There's nothing I should like better," exclaimed Mr. Domayne with enthusiasm. "Thank you.'

Again Millicent had a sense that he was amused by her dignity. Nobody had ever before been so amused by her dignity; or by herself. But this ugly young man did not seem able to take her seriously. He was quite unlike Everard, who was never amused at anything she did. Everard adored her. It was nice to be adored. It was nicer to be adored than it was to be laughed at. With increased dignity, Millicent busied herself with the tea-tray.

"Sugar and milk?" she inquired. "Neither?"

It was four o'clock on midsummer day; and this old house lay in the

He was on his feet. There was every indication that he considered their interview to be at an end. And then something fatal happened. It was not seen at the moment to be fatal, but that might be said of every

was almost distractingly beautiful. For a wonder, midsummer day was radiantly fine. The sun shone hotly, and a fresh breeze stirred the leaves. Stirred, too, the tendrils of Millicent's fair hair, and fluttered about her soft cheeks. Blackbirds were

warbling thoughtfully in the garden beyond the wide-open French windows; sparrows were chirping; a thrush was varying his note with all the well-known impatience of thrushes. The setting was ideal. The silences of this part of the world, which was seven miles from a main road and a station, and sixty-five miles from London, were miraculous in a noisy modern world. And tea at Rest Harrow was the kind of tea that one reads about in old-fashioned books, for the Pearsons were oldfashioned people. Millicent had not been to London more than a dozen times in her life. The fact was to be read in her pretty face with its delicious complexion, and in her ordinarily simple manners; but it handicapped her, she felt, in pouring out tea for a young man with a face like a gargoyle, about whom she knew nothing, and who seemed to regard her smilingly as a child of fourteen.

She passed Mr. Domayne his tea and then looked quellingly at him. She might have spared her pains. Nothing could quell such a young man. Even Everard's mother, the vicar's wife, who was frightfully freezing, could not have quelled him. He would have beamed at her too. How dearly Millicent wished that Daddy had been at home to talk to this young man! Daddy, or even Everard, who was so clever and so adoring, and who (she was confident) could talk to anybody about any thing in the whole world, even Roman antiquities, because he was so learned and was so glad to put everybody right about what they did not understand.

Unconsciously, as she longed for

the support of Everard in this present ordeal, Millicent sighed; and as she had just placed a piece of Annie's rich home-made currant cake in her mouth, a crumb flew instantly into her windpipe. Choking, she knocked against the folding table which bore the tray, and spilled her tea into the saucer and into the tray. Embarrassment upon embarrassment! Tears-not of grief or anger or shame, but of mere ignominious choking-started to her eyes. She was blinded, suffocated . . . She knew that the Gargoyle had jumped to his feet, that he had moved the folding table a little to one side, that with his pocket-handkerchief in his hand he stood ready to give any necessary assistance, from that involved in carrying her into the fresh air to that which went no farther than dabbing the stain on her dress with a motor-cyclist's pocket-handkerchief. The knowledge, and the dread of any application of that terrible handkerchief, made Millicent choke more than ever. Her face burned cruelly. Overwhelmed by mischance, she began quite definitely

to

dislike Mr. Domayne. She thought him officious, as well as ugly. She also thought of him as the cause of all her misfortunes. She was right in this; but worse was to follow.

For just as Millicent stood upright, quite scarlet in the face, resisting Mr. Domayne's hand, which pressed upon her the grimy handkerchief from which she shrank; just as the gargoyle face was near her own, beaming reassuringly, and with something in the eyes which looked like laughter; just as they must have looked the most extraordinary couple in the world, the oldest of friends, the

newest of sweethearts, laughing and embarrassed; Millicent's prayer of a moment earlier was answered. It was answered too late, or too soon, to be of any use to her. It was answered at an excessively inopportune moment. Through the open French windows, suddenly, in silence, and with great precipitation, as if he had been running, came a young

man.

"Everard!" cried Millicent gaspingly. And, as if that were not enough, she must needs add, "How you startled me!" Well, of course, that was the worst thing she could possibly have said. The words proceeded from a mind as flushed as her cheeks, which were as red as they could be.

Everard was younger than the Gargoyle. He was a year older than Millicent, whereas the Gargoyle looked as if he might be about twenty-eight. Everard was the vicar's son. He was extremely learned, for his age, but he did not look learned, and, in fact, he did not look his age. He had very round pink cheeks, and a little chin with a dimpling cleft in the center of it. He had a large mass of curly flaxen hair, and wonderfully red pouting lips. The ten young women who composed the eligible population of Pigglesdown and its neighborhood were all discreetly half in love with Everard, and Millicent a year earlier had been given the prize, so that she was really a very lucky girl indeed. She knew this. She had known italmost monotonously-for twelve months. She knew it more distinctly than ever as she gazed at Everard after her idiotic remark, and saw him gazing at the Gargoyle with

a most peculiar expression upon his face. She had only to look from Everard to the Gargoyle, and back again, to realize her good fortune very acutely. Everard was wellfavored. By contrast with the strange ugly young man he became positively beautiful.

"Everard," cried Millicent eagerly. "This is Mr. Domayne. He's come to see Daddy, and Daddy's been called up to London. Come and sit down. Or first-call Annie. Oh, there you are, Annie." She was speaking feverishly, the color still flaming in her cheeks. "Yes, Annie; I

was just going to ask if you'd bring them. Thank you. Mr. Domayne is writing a book, Everard. It's about that he's come to see Daddy."

"How d'you do?" said Everard stiffly, frowning with intense dis

taste.

"How d'you do?" responded the Gargoyle, beaming.

And, having exchanged these courtesies, the two young men appeared not to notice one another, after the best model for the deportment of young English gentlemen who meet for the first time. An age passed. Millicent gazed in despair at Everard. He looked black. He looked terrible. She ignored his expression, and dwelt upon his features. She saw with joy and pride how the sunlight caught his mop of curly flaxen hair, and could not resist peeping at the Gargoyle in order to observe the degree to which he was impressed. To her indignation, his ugly face wore its apparently customary expression of hideous benevolence, but in the depths of those frank and comprehending eyes there

lurked once more the indescribable shadow of deep laughter. It was too much. Having seen Everard limply return his cup to the tray, and having satisfied herself that the Gargoyle, also, had finished his tea, she jumped to her feet.

"Now, Mr. Domayne," she said briskly. "Would you like Everard to telephone to the Crown, and ask them to keep a room for you, while I show you the garden?"

"That would be delightful," said the Gargoyle. "Would he mind?” "I'll ask him," Millicent dryly responded. "Will you, dear?"

"For to-night?" asked Everard— she feared rather sulkily. Nay, she knew it. Very sulkily.

"For an indefinite period," said the Gargoyle, beaming with amiability. "Thank you so much."

If Millicent had not by now thoroughly disliked Mr. Domayne, so that she was delighted when his horrible motor-bicycle snorted away to the village, she would have found Everard's new silence of jealousy rather gratifying. It pleased her vanity that Everard should be jealous, but it irritated her to know that the jealousy must be giving immense amusement to the Gargoyle. Also, Everard behaved in a rather ignominious way which made her ashamed of him. He ignored the stranger; but he ignored him overstudiously, until it seemed as though the Gargoyle glittered by comparison with a perfectly dull school-boy. And so, in spite of the Gargoyle's tact, their walk round the garden was less than a triumph of sociability. It gradually became a funereal promenade. And at last, much to Millicent's relief, Mr. Domayne took his

leave, promising to call again the following afternoon.

And as the loud clattering of his motor-bicycle died away in the distance Everard committed an indiscretion. Instead of clasping his beloved in his arms, and murmuring "At last!" (to which Millicent would have responded with a heartfelt "Thank goodness!") he looked distantly away from her, with a scowl as black as thunder on his plump childlike face, and uttered terrible words.

"I want to know how it is I found you kissing that bounder, Millicent?" he said.

Millicent could not believe her ears. "Everard?" she demanded.

"I want to know why you let that beast kiss you?" said Everard doggedly.

Millicent's heart seemed to lurch sharply. She felt sick. The blood swept up to her face exactly as it had done when she choked over the crumb which leaped into her windpipe.

"How dare you!" she cried, in a rage. "I'd never seen the man until an hour ago."

"That only makes it worse," retorted Everard, with trembling lips. Millicent could not speak. She was choking again-this time with indignation.

"I'll never speak to you again!" she declared. "At least, not till you've apologized!"

And with that she turned swiftly on her heel and ran back to the house.

22

She was still furious when she arrived indoors and for five minutes afterward. She walked about the sitting-room with her heart beating

and her teeth clenched. And at last her breath caught in a rather hysterical laugh of excitement.

"How ridiculous!" she exclaimed. Again she quivered with anger. "How shameful!"

Her finger flew for one instantso indignant was Millicent-to the half-hoop, as if she would cast it from her. But the action was not completed. Her hands dropped to her sides.

"To think that I'd . . . That man! Good gracious! what can Everard see in him? It's disgraceful of Everard. It's disgraceful! He'll be coming in to apologize in a minute, and say he's sorry. Then I'll explain. We'll laugh at it."

Slowly her head shook.

"I wonder if we shall?" she thought. "It's quite true, Everard's not easily amused. He's serious. It's because... Oh, how disloyal I am! He's perfect. Perfect." And all the time a little voice was saying within her: "He isn't. He's been silly and insulting . . ." But her conscious thought continued: "He's just different from Mr. Domayne, who's amused at everything-even if it's nothing at all . . . Here he

..

It was Annie, come to collect the tea-things. Millicent turned away to hide her bright eyes. Annie was another woman, who "noticed" such things.

Meanwhile, Everard, his heart swelling at thought of the fickleness of woman of modern woman-had reached the vicarage. He had entered the drawing-room, where his mother sat, eagle-eyed, rather eaglenosed, a large, rather short, magis

terial woman who wore a large square-patterned dress of gray flannel and held her head very high. "Everard!" she cried.

Sulkily Everard sat down at a distance.

"What is it, my dear?" demanded his mother. "You're upset. Tell mother what it is."

Haltingly the tale was told. And to an accompaniment of exclamations of incredulity and amazement. Mrs. Manners became more eaglelike than ever. She looked first at Everard, and then, scathingly, as if at an imaginary Millicent.

"Scandalous!" cried Mrs. Manners. "Her father not two hours gone from home. Scandalous! I always suspected it. The girl's no good. I must think what's to be done."

22

In his room at the Crown, the Gargoyle was staring at the tiny rose pattern of his wall-paper, and at the pictures of race-horses and dogs which hung irregularly about the room; and he was thinking: "What a very nice, pretty, attractive girl! And what a young prig of a sweetheart she's got!" And at the same time he thought with pleasure of the fact that he would be seeing Millicent again within twenty-four hours. Because although Maurice Domayne was quite the most learned man of his age regarding the Roman occupation of Britain, he had not gone so far into personal antiquity as to be blind or insensitive to young women as charming as Millicent Pearson.

He was still thinking of Millicent as he took a stroll through the lanes about Pigglesdown after his supper that evening. The hedges were