All emotion has a common denominator. The last time Lingard had been as moved as he was now was when he had parted from Jane Oglander in the little sitting-room in that shabby house on the south side of the Thames. There was in Jane a certain austerity, a delicate reserve of manner, which had made him feel that she was a creature to be worshipped from afar, rather than a woman responsive to the man she loves. Each happy day of the week they had spent together practically alone in London, Lingard had had to woo her afresh. But that, to a man of the great soldier's temperament, had been no matter for complaining. Her scruples and delicacies had been met by him with infinite indulgence and tenderness. Then on the last day, they had had their first lovers' quarrel. He had entreated her to come away with him, to accept, that is, the Maules' eager invitation. Was he not going to the Paches' simply because they lived near Rede Place? But Jane had promised to stay a week with a friend who was ill--and she would not break her word. Lingard had become suddenly angry, and in his anger had turned cold. For the first time in his knowledge of her, tears had sprung to Jane's eyes. Where is the man who does not early make the woman who loves him weep? But these tears, or so it had seemed to him, had unlocked a deep spring of poignant feeling in her heart, or perchance had made it possible for her to allow her lover to know that it was there. He had moved away from her side, and then, in a moment, had come from her a smothered cry, a calling of her whole being for and to him. She had thrown out her hands with the instinctive gesture of a child who wishes to turn one who has been unkind, kind. And when she was in his arms, there had come to her that sense of spiritual and physical response which had brought to him the moment of exultant triumph he had thought would never be his. How strange that after that she should still have held out, still have kept her word to the sick woman who needed her! It was of Jane Oglander--of Jane as she had been, all tenderness and fire, on that day when they had parted, that Lingard thought as he followed the woman whom he now called friend into the room where Richard Maule sat waiting for him. * * * * * The Paches' horseless carriage was proceeding through the park at a pace which two of the five sitting in it felt to be, if delightful, then rather dangerous. "Athena grows more beautiful every time I see her," said Tom Pache suddenly. He and Hew Lingard were sitting side by side opposite Mr. and Mrs. Pache. Patty was wedged in between her parents. "I thought her gown very odd and unsuitable," said his mother sharply. "It isn't as if she had a cold. I suppose she keeps her smart evening gowns for her smart visits." "Yes, I thought it a pity she should hide anything so good as her shoulders," answered her son thoughtfully.