"Is she?" Peignton asked, and was happily unaware of his companion's flush of displeasure. "She looks very young. It must be lonely for her in that big place. I'm glad she has you for a friend." His voice softened as he spoke the last, words. He turned his head to cast a smiling glance at the girl's figure, and the thought came to his mind that just in this simple, unpretentious fashion would they drive back to their joint home during the years to come. It would not run to more than a cart, but she had not been used to luxury, and was quite content in her Burberry and cap. It was not like marrying a society woman. Heaven knows what fallals Lady Cassandra would don for a like occasion. Peignton admired "fallals," meaning by the term dainty, feminine accessories, as all men do, apart from the question of price. He could not for his life have described Cassandra's costume that evening, but it had left its impression as a mysterious floating thing, infinitely removed from the garments of men. Teresa was essentially tailor-made. A good thing too, for the wife of a poor man! "I wonder what on earth made her many him!" "Made her--" Teresa's blue eyes widened in astonishment. "Lady Cassandra? Because she loved him, of course." "Is it of course? Are there no other reasons for marriage, Miss Teresa?" "There ought not to be. There are not... in Chumley. But of course we are not smart." "No." Peignton was once more unconscious of offence. "Still, it's sometimes difficult to fit the theory to individual cases! Do you never look at the couples around you, and wonder how on earth they came to fancy each other? I believe many of them wonder themselves before a year is past. I can't imagine Lady Cassandra choosing Raynor!" "Mr Raynor is very nice. He is a good landlord. People like him very much." "I like him myself. He's a very excellent specimen of his type. I'm not depreciating Raynor as a man--only as a husband for one particular wife. She's everything that is vivid and alive, he's everything that's--slow! It's a mystery how she took him!" "Perhaps," Teresa said shrewdly, "he wasn't so slow _then_! He was in love with her, you see." She used the past tense in placid acceptance of an obvious fact; Peignton accepted it also, his curiosity concerning the Raynors eclipsed by a tinge of jealousy aroused by the girl's words. She seemed to understand a good deal of the behaviour of a man in love! How did she come by her knowledge? He had thought the coast clear, but was it possible that one of those local fellows--? Man-like, his interest was quickened by the suspicion, and Teresa gained in value at the thought of another man's admiration. There was unmistakable inflection in the tone of his next words: "When _I_ am married, I shall hope to remain in love with my wife!"