"Do you still believe in nice men, Mona?" "I always did." "Ah, that's a pity. You will never know the joys of conversion." "Who has been converting the pessimist in the hammock?" "Oh, I am a hopeless sceptic. But I like Dr Dudley all the same. He seems to have an awfully good influence on the students. He is a good deal older than they are, and he lives his life according to his own tastes, without posing as a saint or being mistaken for a muff. What I liked was his manner with those horrid dirty 'casuals.' And then he is just enough of a cynic to give an edge to it all." "I am afraid I am too old to appreciate cynics." "Poor soul!" said Lucy, in a tone of profound commiseration. "Life is indeed a thing of the past for you. Cynics are the spice of the world. However, it seems to me the Mater should come up at once. It would not do for her to be here during the hottest of the summer. I will write to her this very day." She proceeded to alight from the hammock as she spoke. "By the way, Mona," she said suddenly, "you must have seen Dr Dudley. He was Anatomy medallist." "Yes," said Mona, and she said no more. She hoped the broad brim of her garden-hat would conceal the whiteness of her face. This was almost the first time that any outsider had spoken to her of Dr Dudley, and she was amazed to find how strong was her sense of possession in him. It was very characteristic of her that, after the first moment of indignation, she scarcely blamed Dudley at all for his frigid greeting in Burlington Gardens. She realised vividly how things must look from his point of view--so vividly that, with that quick power of seeing both sides of a question which was her compensation for "not being a reformer," she saw also her own danger, and cried out in her heart, "Whatever happens, let me not lose my pride!" "I want you to come and have tea with me at the Hall on Saturday," Lucy said, when the friends met at hospital a few days later. "Knowing your love for what you are pleased to call 'sensuous beauty,' I have asked Edgar Davidson's sister to meet you. She has just come home from San Remo, and she really is the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life." "I would go a long way to see a really beautiful woman," said Mona laughing; "but I have a young friend whose swans show an awkward tendency to turn out ugly ducklings." "Ah, well! wait till you see Miss Davidson." And when Saturday afternoon came, Mona confessed that Lucy was right. There could be no doubt that Angela Davidson was a beauty. A winter in the South had banished every apparent trace of delicacy, while leaving behind a bloom that was really flower-like. "Miss Reynolds tells me that Lady Munro is your aunt," she said to Mona. "Do you think she would mind my calling to thank her for her wonderful kindness to Edgar at Monte Carlo?" "I am sure she would be delighted to see you," Mona answered warmly; "but I expect she has entirely forgotten the incident."