"Their troubles are over at last, poor children; and really I think they've all behaved very well. And yet----" "Yes?" "I should have thought Mary and Mr. Ashforth so suited to one another. Well, well, the heart's an unaccountable thing--to an old spinster, anyhow." "You're right, Miss Bussey. Take my wife and me. You wouldn't have thought we should have hit it off, would you? First year I knew her I hardly dared to speak to her--used to mug up Browning and--(Sir Roger here referred to an eminent living writer) and chaps like that, before I went to see her, you know. No use! I bored her to death. At last I chucked it up." "Well?" "And I went one day and talked about the Grand National for half an hour by the clock. Well, she asked me to come again next day, and I went, and told her all about the last burlesque and--and so on, you know. And then I asked her to marry me." "And she said 'Yes'?" "Not directly. She said there was an impassable gulf between us--an utter want of sympathy in our tastes and an irreconcilable difference of intellectual outlook." "Dear me! Didn't that discourage you?" "I said I didn't care a dash; she was the only girl I ever cared for (all right, Miss Bussey, don't laugh), and I'd have any outlook she liked. I said I knew I was an ass, but I thought I knew a pretty girl when I saw one, and I'd go away if she'd show me a prettier one." "Well?" "Well, she didn't." Miss Bussey laughed a little. "Of course," resumed Sir Roger, "I've got money, you know, and all that, and perhaps----" "Sir Roger! What a thing to say of your wife!" "Well, with another girl--but hang it, I don't believe Maud would. Still, you see, it's so dashed queer that sometimes----" "I'm sure she's very fond of you," said Miss Bussey, rather surprised fit the nature of the confidence which she was receiving. "I expect it's all right," resumed Deane, more cheerfully, "and that brings us back to where we started, doesn't it?" "And we started in bewilderment." "You're puzzled that Dora, Bellairs and Ashforth should pair off together, and----?" "Well, the other combination would seem more natural, wouldn't it? Doesn't it surprise you a little?" "I'm never surprised at anything till I know it's true," said Sir Roger. "What, you----?" They were interrupted by the return of their friends, and a move was made. Three vehicles were necessary to take them back, for the twos could, obviously, neither be separated from one another nor united with anybody else, and in procession, Miss Bussey and Deane leading, they filed along the avenues back to the Arc de Triomphe.