“The explanation is simple,” said Rodney Spelvin. “This sweet girl is the only person in the world who seems able to simply and intelligently and in a few easily understood words make clear the knack of the thing. There is none like her, none. I have been to pro. after pro., but not one has been any good to me. I am a temperamental man, and there is a lack of sympathy and human understanding about these professionals which jars on my artist soul. They look at you as if you were a half-witted child. They click their tongues. They make odd Scotch noises. I could not endure the strain. And then this wonderful girl, to whom in a burst of emotion I had confided my unhappy case, offered to give me private lessons. So I went with her to some of those indoor practising places. But here, too, my sensibilities were racked by the fact that unsympathetic eyes observed me. So I fixed up a room here where we could be alone.” “And instead of going there,” said Anastatia, “we are wasting half the afternoon talking.” William brooded for a while. He was not a quick thinker. “Well, look here,” he said at length, “this is the point. This is the nub of the thing. This is where I want you to follow me very closely. Have you asked Anastatia to marry you?” “Marry me?” Rodney gazed at him, shocked. “Have I asked her to marry me? I, who am not worthy to polish the blade of her niblick! I, who have not even a thirty handicap, ask a girl to marry me who was in the semi-final of last year’s Ladies’ Open! No, no, Bates, I may be a _vers-libre_ poet, but I have some sense of what is fitting. I love her, yes. I love her with a fervour which causes me to frequently and for hours at a time lie tossing sleeplessly upon my pillow. But I would not dare to ask her to marry me.” Anastatia burst into a peal of girlish laughter. “You poor chump!” she cried. “Is that what has been the matter all this time! I couldn’t make out what the trouble was. Why, I’m crazy about you. I’ll marry you any time you give the word.” Rodney reeled. “What!” “Of course I will.” “Anastatia!” “Rodney!” He folded her in his arms. “Well, I’m dashed,” said William. “It looks to me as if I had been making rather a lot of silly fuss about nothing. Jane, I wronged you.” “It was my fault!” “No, no!” “Yes, yes.” “Jane!” “William!” He folded her in his arms. The two detectives, having entered the circumstances in their note-books, looked at one another with moist eyes. “Cyril!” said Mr. Brown. “Reggie!” said Mr. Delancey. Their hands met in a brotherly clasp. * * * * *