Doria, seeing him unresentful of kicking, continued to kick (when Barbara wasn't looking--for Barbara had read her a lecture on the polite treatment of trustees and executors) and made him more her slave than ever. He fetched and carried. He read poetry. He was Custodian of the Sacred Rubbers, when the grass was damp. He shielded her from over-rough incursions on the part of Susan. He chanted the responses in her Litany of Saint Adrian. He sacrificed his golf so that he could sit near her and hold figurative wool for her to unwind. It was very pretty to watch them. The contrast between them made its unceasing appeal. Besides, Doria did not kick all the time; there were long spells during which, touched by the giant's devotion, she repaid it in tokens of tender regard. At such times she was as fascinating an elf as one could wish to meet on a spring morning. He could bring, like no one else, the smile into her dark, mournful eyes. There is no doubt that, in her way and as far as her Adrian-bound emotional temperament permitted, she felt grateful to Jaffery. She also felt safe in his company. He was like a great St. Bernard dog, she declared to Barbara. These idyllic relations continued unruffled for some days, until a letter arrived from the eminent novelist to whom, with Doria's approval, Jaffery had sent the proofs. "A marvellous story," was the great man's verdict; "singularly different from 'The Diamond Gate,' only resembling it in its largeness of conception and the perfection of its kind. The alteration of a single word would spoil it. If an alien hand is there, it is imperceptible." At this splendid tribute Jaffery beamed with happiness. He tossed the letter to Barbara across the breakfast table. "No alien hand perceptible. Ho! ho! ho! But it's stunning, isn't it? I do believe the old fraud of a book is going to win through. This ought to satisfy Doria, don't you think so?" "It ought to," said Barbara. "I'll send it up to her room." But Doria with Adrian's impeccability on the brain--and how could a work of Adrian's be impeccable when an alien hand, however imperceptible, had touched it?--was not satisfied. Towards noon, when she came downstairs, she met Jaffery on the terrace, with a familiar little knitting of the brow before which his welcoming smile faded. "It's all right up to a point," she said, handing him back the letter. "Nobody with the rudiments of a brain could fail to recognise the merits of Adrian's work. But no novelist is possessed of the critical faculty." "Then why," asked Jaffery, after the way of men, "did you ask me to send him the novel?" "I took it for granted he had common sense," replied Doria, after the way of women. "And he hasn't any?" "Read the thing again." Jaffery scanned the page mechanically and looked up: "Well, what's to be done now?" "I should like to compare the proofs with Adrian's original manuscript. Where is it?" Here was the question we had all dreaded. Jaffery lied convincingly.