"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there--" "Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to the other--"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and that's--" "Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her. "Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me you've dislodged the Fury?" Winnington shook his head. "_J'y suis--j'y reste_!" "I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a woman. Tell me all about it." Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up her work and went back to the garden. "Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to." "But of course I want to! And there is nobody in the world so absolutely bound to help me as you." "I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and describe your proceedings." Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tete-a-tete._ She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay his perplexities bare. * * * * * But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all. "What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real claim on you than this kitten!" Winnington's grey eyes fixed on the trees outside shewed a man trying to retrace his own course. "He wrote me a very touching letter. And I have always thought that men--and women--ought to be ready to do this kind of service for each other. I should have felt a beast if I had said No, at once. But I confess now that I have seen Miss Delia, I don't know whether I can do the slightest good." "Hold on!" said Lady Tonbridge, sharply,--"You can't give it up--now." Winnington laughed. "I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall probably make a mess of it."