“Except that it seems far, far too good to be true. I thought my life was quite over, as far as that sort of thing went, and that I was just one of those unlucky people who’d made a bad mistake. And then to find _him_--so good and dear and nice, and actually caring for me!” “I fail to see anything so astounding in that last item.” Nancy Fazackerly shook her head. “I know what I’m like--what circumstances have made me,” she said simply. “Father is a very dominant personality, as you know, and I’ve never been very brave. Sometimes I wonder that I’ve got any individuality left at all. And then, being so badly off has made me calculating, and even mean, in tiny little ways that you probably wouldn’t even understand if I told you about them. You see, I always knew that the bills would make Father angry, and the thing I’m most afraid of in the world is that people should be angry with me. Often and often I’ve said what isn’t true so as not to disagree with other people. I daresay you won’t believe me....” I believed her, on the contrary, without any difficulty at all, and I was touched by her _naïveté_, and by the pathos of her confession. “That would be all over if you married Christopher.” “Yes,” she said. “Of course I suppose everyone, more or less, feels that if they could be happy they could be good, but if--if anything so wonderful as that happened to me, it would be the first great chance that I’d ever had in my life.” I knew it was true. “I believe it has come and that you’re going to take it and make the very most of it. And I’ll back you for all I’m worth, Nancy my dear.” She thanked me with a gratitude that was disproportionate, and then asked if I thought that anybody had guessed. “Because, of course, nothing whatever is settled yet, and in any case, his sister comes first.” Nancy looked terribly apprehensive, and I could think of nothing whatever that would be at once convincing and reassuring, as to Claire’s reception of the tidings. So, on the principle of the counterirritant, I asked when she was going to tell her father. Mrs. Fazackerly’s small face actually and literally became quite pale. “Chris is going to tell him for me,” she murmured, in a conscience- stricken whisper. “He says he doesn’t mind. He and Captain Patch are the only two people I know who are not a little bit overwhelmed by dear Father’s personality.” At her mention of Captain Patch, we both glanced round at the little knoll, at the foot of which he and Mrs. Harter had been sitting, but the two figures had disappeared. At the same moment the bridge players rose and came towards us, and the servants apparently sprang out of the earth and began to collect the cards and markers and pencils and put them away. Mrs. Leeds said, “What’s that young man, Patch, done to Mrs. Harter? I asked her on purpose to keep Hector amused, and she’s behavin’ like a flapper havin’ her first flirtation. It’s indecent, considerin’ all we know about the woman.”