But in the evening the taste of hot tin that represented Miss Peasey's curry made him for ever afterward leave the variety to her own fancy, thereby preserving henceforth that immutable alternation of roast beef and roast mutton which was the horizon of her house-keeping. These solitary meals were lightened by the thought of the Rectory. Neither beef nor mutton seemed of much importance, when his mind's eye could hold that shadowy drawing-room. There was Monica with her pale gold hair in the stormy sunlight, cold and shy, but of such a marble purity of line that but to sit beside her was to admire a statue whose coldness made her the more admirable. There was Margaret, carved slimly out of ivory, very tall with weight of dusky hair, and slow fastidious voice that spoke dreamily of the things Guy loved best. There was Pauline sitting away from the others in the window seat, away in her shyness and wildness. Was not the magic of her almost more difficult to recapture than any? A briar rose she was whose petals seemed to fall at the touch of definition, a briar rose that was waving out of reach, even of thought. Guy wished he could visualize the Rector in his own drawing-room; but instead he had to set him in Plashers Mead, of which no doubt he had thought the owner a young ass; and Guy blushed to remember the nervous idiocy which had let him take the Rector solemnly into the kitchen to look at dish-covers in a row, and deaf Miss Peasey sitting by as much fire as the table would yield to her chair. But if the Rector were missing from the picture, at any rate he could picture Mrs. Grey, shy like her daughters and with a delicious vagueness all her own. She was most like Pauline, and indeed in Pauline Guy could see her mother, as the young moon holds in her lap the wraith of the old moon.... "Why, you haven't eaten anything," remonstrated Miss Peasey, breaking in upon his vision. "And I've made you a rice pudding for a little variety." The shadowy drawing-room faded with the old chintz curtains and fragile almost immaterial silver; the china bowls of Lowestoft; the dull white panelling and faintly aromatic sweetness. Instead remained a rice pudding that smelt and looked as solid as a pie. However, that very afternoon Guy was greatly encouraged to get an invitation to dinner at the Rectory from the hands of the gardener. Birdwood was one of those servants who seem to have accepted with the obligations of service the extreme responsibilities of paternity; and Guy hastened to take advantage of the chance to establish himself on good terms with one who might prove a most powerful ally. "Not much of a garden, I'm afraid," he said deprecatingly to Birdwood, as they stood in colloquy outside. The gardener shook his head.