"Because I wanted your real opinion." "Before you set up an opinion, you had better come to my meeting on the twenty-first. Then perhaps you'll learn something about it." Fanny changed the subject to Sir John Corbett's laziness. "A man," said Mr. Waddington, "without any seriousness, any sense of responsibility." After coffee Mr. Waddington removed Fanny to the library to consult with him about the formation of his Committee, leaving Barbara and Ralph Bevan alone. Fanny waved her hand to them from the doorway, signalling her blessing on their unrestrained communion. "It's deplorable," said Ralph, "to see a woman of Fanny's intelligence mixing herself up with a rotten scheme like that." "Poor darling, she only does it to keep him quiet." "Oh, yes, I admit there's every excuse for her." They looked at each other and smiled. A smile of delicious and secret understanding. "Isn't he wonderful?" she said. "I thought you'd like him.... I say, you know, I _must_ come to his meeting. He'll be more wonderful than ever there. Can't you see him?" "I can. It's almost _too_ much--to think that I should be allowed to know him, to live in the same house with him, to have him turning himself on by the hour together. What have I done to deserve it?" "I see," he said, "you _have_ got it." "Got what?" "The taste for him. The genuine passion. I had it when I was here. I couldn't have stood it if I hadn't." "I know. You must have had it. You've got it now." "And I don't suppose I've seen him anything like at his best. You'll get more out of him than I did." "Oh, do you think I shall?" "Yes. He may rise to greater heights." "You mean he may go to greater lengths?" "Perhaps. I don't know. You'd have, of course, to stop his lengths, which would he a pity. I think of him mostly in heights. There's no reason why you shouldn't let him soar.... But I mustn't discuss him. I've just eaten his dinner." "No, we mustn't," Barbara agreed. "That's the worst of dinners." "I say, though, can't we meet somewhere?" "Where we _can?_" "Yes. Where we can let ourselves rip? Couldn't we go for more walks together?" "I'm afraid there won't be time." "There'll be loads of time. When he's off in his car 'rounding up the county.'" "When he's 'off,' I'm 'on' as Mrs. Waddington's companion." "Fanny won't mind. She'll let you do anything you like. At any rate, she'll let _me_ do anything _I_ like." "Will you ask her?" "Of course I shall." So they settled it. 3 When Barbara said to herself that Mr. Waddington would spoil her evening with Ralph Bevan, she had judged by the change that had come over the house since the return of its master. You felt it first in the depressed faces of the servants, of Partridge and Annie Trinder. A thoughtful gloom had settled even on Kimber. Worse than all, Fanny Waddington had left off humming. Barbara missed that spontaneous expression of her happiness.