“What, you can’t all be going at once?” and he had heaved a great sigh of relief. But in the dead silence that followed Mr. Balestier’s words, whilst Robert Grimshaw was wondering whether Balestier had merely and colossally put his almost ox-like foot into it, or whether this actually was a “try on,” Pauline’s voice came: “Oh, not just yet. I’m in mourning, you know. I think I go out a little too much as it is.” “Oh, she’s saved the situation again!” And then irresistibly it came over him to ask what was the good of this eternally saving the situation that neither of them really wanted to maintain. “She should,” he said to himself fiercely, “give it up.” He wasn’t going to stand by and see her tortured. Dudley Leicester had given in, and serve him right, the cad! For all they could tell, he was having the time of his life. Why shouldn’t they do the same? “Oh, isn’t she _wonderful_!” Ellida exclaimed suddenly. “I don’t wonder....” And then she gazed at him with her plaintive eyes. The slim, dark Mr. Held brought out suddenly: “It’s the most wonderful ...” but his voice died away in his jaws. “After all,” he continued as suddenly, “perhaps she’s holding the thought. You see, we Christian Scientists ...” But again his voice died away; his dark eyes gazed, mournful and doglike, at Pauline’s dimly-lit figure. The tall, small room, with its large white panels, to which the frames of pale-tinted pictures gave an occasional golden gleam, had about it an air of blue dimness, for the curtains, straight at the sides, and half concealing the very tall windows, were of a transparent and ultramarine network. The little encampment around Dudley Leicester occupied a small back drawing-room, where the window, being of stained glass that showed on its small, square panels the story of St. George, was, on account of its tall, dark furniture, almost in gloom. Little, and as it were golden, Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room; she looked upon the floor, and appeared lost in reflection. Then she touched one side of her fair hair, and without looking up she came silently towards them. Ellida was upon the point of running towards her, her arms outstretched, and of saying: “You _are_ wonderful!” but Pauline, with her brown eyes a little averted, brought out without any visible emotion, as if she were very abstracted, the words: “And how is your little Kitty? She is still at Brighton with Miss Lascarides? Robert dear, just ring the bell for the tea-things to be taken away.”