The gentle raillery of her tone had a touch of seriousness in it which seemed to throw a new light on his view of the subject. "You mean that it is likely----" "Yes. I think it extremely likely that the Woodwards would rather break it off." "But why?" he asked, angrily rising to pace the room; "my prospects have not changed." "'They twain shall be one flesh,'" quoted Mrs. Vane, lightly. "And do you really think so much of your heroism, that--unaided by love, remember--you will fancy it will compensate Alice Woodward, who loves the pavement, for the damp and dulness of Gleneira? I remember, Paul"--her voice grew a trifle unsteady--"having to decide a similar question, once. To decide whether I could compensate the man I loved for something--well, for something which was not more dear to him than civilisation is to this young lady, and, though I loved him, I knew I could not." "And--and were you right?" he asked with a sudden interest. "Of course I was right. He recovered the loss of me rapidly, and yet I am not unattractive--what is more, I am generally considered good company, which I defy anyone to be if he careers up and down the room like a Polar bear. Please sit down and let me make you a nice cup of tea. The last, I am sure, must have been horrid. You don't know how to take care of yourself a bit, Paul, but _you_ are lucky. _You_ will get plenty of people to pay for the privilege of doing so." He told himself that she talked a great deal of nonsense at times, but that she did it, as she did everything else, with infinite verve and grace. Blanche, who had not said half as much, had made him angry; and here he was seated beside Violet's sofa, enjoying his tea, and feeling that sense of _bien être_ which he always felt in her company. Yet even she might have failed in producing this for once, if he could have overheard a conversation which was going on over another cup of tea in Queen's Gardens, where Mrs. Woodward, with a real frown on her usually placid face, was listening to her husband's account of his interview with Paul that morning. "Very honourable, no doubt, but exceedingly unsatisfactory," she remarked, with asperity. "I must say that I think you failed." "Did you wish me to give the man his _congé_, my dear?" interrupted her spouse, irritably. "If so, you should have told me so distinctly, but if it comes to that I can write and dismiss him." "You have such a crude way of putting things, James, and though I don't presume to understand business affairs I must own it seems inexplicable how these difficulties have come about. And Alice is so accustomed to civilisation, and Jack is coming back from Riga next week, so it does seem to me a flying in the face of Providence." Mr. Woodward looked at her in impatient amaze. "Good heavens! Maria, what do you mean? Who or what is flying in the face of Providence?"