"Oh, Dick, have you thought it all over, looked at every side of it--twenty times, a hundred times, five hundred times?" "Not I! I looked at it all round once for all, and I've never doubted of it since. I've been waiting for you to do all that." His smile was happy and now confident. "Well, in the end, I like it better like that. I like you to think so, anyhow, even if you're deceiving yourself. Because it shows----" She broke off mischievously. "What does it show, Dick?" "Why, that you're the jewel of the world! What else would it be showing?" "But what about the lady you were unhappy over, that evening at the station?" "You knew it was yourself all the time!" "Then how did you dare to say it wasn't serious? And to call yourself--or me--a fool?" "You're teasing me to the end, Winnie." She grew grave and slipped her arm through his. "I knew really why it wasn't and couldn't be serious to you--and why just in that way it became terribly serious. Time was when I should have thought you silly to think it so serious, and when you would have kept it 'not serious' right to the end. We've changed one another, Dick. I you, you me--and life both of us! And so we can make terms with one another." "Terms of perfect peace," he answered. He knew what was in her mind. "I give you my honour--in my soul I'm at peace." "Then so be it, dear old Dick. For neither am I ashamed." She turned round to face him, and, putting her hands on his shoulders, kissed his lips. "Now let's go over to your house, and see that this eventuality really has been properly borne in view. Dear Stephen! He'll philosophize over us, Dick!" That was, of course, only to be expected. Yet it did not happen when Stephen and his wife were told the great news after dinner. On the contrary, after brief but hearty congratulations, the host and hostess disappeared. Winnie thought that she had detected a glance passing between them. "They needn't be so very tactful!" she said laughing. They were very tactful; for even to lovers the time they stayed away was undeniably long. There could be no illusion about the progress of the hands of the clock. Yet when Tora and Stephen came in and were accused of an excessive display of the useful social quality in question, Tora blushed, denied the charge rather angrily, and bade them all a brief good night. Stephen glared through his spectacles in mock fury. "You two think yourselves everybody! As a matter of fact, for the last hour or so--how late is it? Eleven! Oh, I say! Yes, of course! Well, for the last two hours or so, Tora and I have forgotten your very existence; and, if I may use the candour of an old friend, it's rather a jar to find you here. You'd better escort your friend home, Mr. Dennehy." "Well, what have you been doing then?" laughed Winnie.