Half an hour afterwards Paul Macleod, coming over to the Lodge on the pretence of giving notice of an afternoon rehearsal, found them still busy over the loves and woes of Henri and Blanche. In fact, Dr. Kennedy was on his knees disclaiming his part passionately; whereat the newcomer frowned. First at the sight, secondly at his own dislike to it. "I have been trying to teach Miss Carmichael how to refuse an aspirant firmly, yet sympathetically," said the doctor, coolly, rising to his feet and putting the handkerchief he had spread on the ground into his pocket; "but she finds a difficulty, apparently, in keeping her countenance. It is a mistake, Marjory. Half the unhappy marriages in the world come from the difficulty which the untutored mind has in saying 'No' with decent courtesy. It is so much easier to say 'Yes,' since that requires no diplomacy. If I had daughters I should always impress on them that the eleventh commandment does not consist in 'Thou shalt not refuse.'" "I shouldn't have thought it necessary to impress that on the girls of the present day," remarked Paul, rather hastily, and Marjory flushed up at once. "It is never safe to generalise from a single experience, Captain Macleod," she retorted, "and yours may have been exceptionally fortunate--hitherto." "Perhaps it has--hitherto," he replied, and, after delivering his message, went off in a huff. Yet he felt himself more on a plane with Marjory than he had ever done before, slightly to his discomfiture; for this atmosphere of quick give and take, this suspicion of jealous anger, was familiar to him, and he could not mistake its possibilities. So he devoted himself more than usual to his duty, and though, of course, he made up his tiff a trifle sentimentally with Marjory, he chose to be rather lordly over her relations with Dr. Kennedy, and even went so far as to mention to his sister that he suspected her _protégé_, Mr. Gillespie, was forestalled. "My dear Paul!" said Lady George, distractedly, "I really don't care at the present moment who marries who. I might be in a better world for that matter, if I weren't in Purgatory." "Wherefore?" asked Paul, kindly. "Oh! the supper, and the servants, and the general civility," replied Blanche, who was in reality enjoying the bustle, but, at the same time, liked to pose as a victim. "Really, in these out-of-the-way places one has to be a virtuous woman, and bring one's food from afar; and then there is always Blasius. I suppose it is the name, as you say, George, but, really, I don't believe that child _can_ do what is right." "Nonsense, my dear," retorted her spouse, who ever since he undertook to interpret the laws of nature to his youngest born had been a trifle jealous of his pupil's reputation. "Blasius won the Derby in '73. What has the child been doing now?"