Once or twice it had peeped out timidly, and Mrs. Gordon had seen it. She was a born match-maker; of her matches she was inordinately proud, and generally with good reason. She felt that she had contributed to the happiness of many, and that, just at the critical moment, she had supplied the little look, or hint, or word, that brought the whole story to a happy ending. As she sat with her eyes fastened reflectively on her visitor, she rapidly made up her mind that he should marry Angel. The "talk" would eventually blow over; in fact, if she were to dress herself up as a Japanese, or a negress, and go to the club, the talk would instantly be diverted to herself. So much for talk! Here was a tide in Philip's affairs and Angel's, and she resolved to take it at the flood. "I think you and Angel would be an ideal couple," she said. "I'm sure you would make her happy." "What!" he exclaimed, struggling back out of a day dream; "you are not in earnest?" "You would be April and July." "No, but a March hare, and a Michaelmas goose," he retorted, scornfully. "I'm much too old for her." Mrs. Gordon made no effort to combat this statement—her husband was seventeen years her senior. Was not her bleak married life an awful warning to other girls? "She would have someone to lean on," she resumed; "someone to guide her." "I'm not sure that she'd care about _that_," her visitor protested, with a short laugh. "She always—liked you—she likes you still. The king can do no wrong," she urged, insistently. "He would do her a great wrong if he asked her to be his queen to silence lying tongues. A gay young fellow of five-and-twenty, who dances well and is a good polo player, is far more in Angel's line that I am—even supposing she would have me—which she would not." Here Mrs. Gordon made a gesture of dissent. "I'm too settled in my ways. After a man passes the twenties, and gets on into the thirties without marrying, he does not want a wife—she's a sort of extra." "What heresy," cried his listener, indignantly. "Besides, you know, I—was once—in love with another girl." "Oh, yes; but that was twelve years ago," said his listener, quickly; "she is no girl now. You cannot pretend you have not got over that. We all know that men's hearts, like crabs' claws, grow again." "What heresy," he repeated, with a laugh; "but, come, Mrs. Gordon, let us be serious. Surely you can suggest some nice retired family in a hill station who would receive Angel? I'll allow her four hundred a year—a family with girls preferred."