"You're ten times fonder of me than you are of that good lady. Now, own up." "Roger!" Alwynne was outraged. She made efforts to sit upright, but Roger's arm did not move. It was a strong arm and it held her, if anything, a trifle more firmly. "You're talking rot. Please let me sit up." "You're all right. It's quite true, my child, and you know it. Ah, yes--they're a lovely colour, aren't they?" For Alwynne was gazing at the tulips with elaborate indifference. Secretly she was a little excited. Here was a new Roger.... He was quite mad, of course, but rather a dear.... She wondered what he would say next.... "To examine our evidence. You were very glad to see me--now weren't you?" "I'm always pleased," remarked Alwynne sedately to the tulips, "to see old friends." "Yes--but we're not old friends exactly, if you refer to length of acquaintanceship. If to age--I was thirty last March. I'm not doddering yet." "I wasn't speaking of ages. Thirty is perfectly young. Clare's thirty-five. You do fish, Roger." "Yes. I'm going to have a haul some day soon, I hope. But to resume. Firstly, you were jolly glad to see me. Secondly, you took your lecture very fairly meekly--for you! and you've already had one talking-to to-day during which, I gather, you were anything but meek." "I never told you----" "But there was a glint in your eye----You've no idea how invariably your face gives you away, Alwynne. Thirdly, you've hinted quite half-a-dozen times that Miss Hartill would be all the better for a few of my virtues. Tenth, and finally, you've made my coat collar thoroughly damp--you needn't try to move--and I don't exactly see you spoiling your Clare's Sunday blouse that way, often, eh?" Alwynne was obliged to agree with the tulips. "I thought so. Therefore I say, after considering all the evidence--in your heart of hearts you are ten times fonder of me than of Miss Clare Hartill." The trap was attractively baited. Impossible for an Alwynne to resist analysis of her own emotions. She walked into it. "I don't know--I wonder if you're right? Perhaps I am _fonder_ of you. I love Clare--that's quite a different thing. One couldn't be fond of Clare. That would be commonplace. She's the sort of wonderful person you just worship. She's like a cathedral--a sort of mystery. Now you're like a country cottage, Roger. Of course, one couldn't be fond of a cathedral." "A cottage," remarked Roger to the tulips in his turn, "can be made a very comfortable place. Especially if it's a good-sized one--Holt Meadows, for instance. My tenants leave in June, did you know? There's a south wall and a croquet ground." "Tennis?" Roger was afraid the tulips would find it too small for tennis. "But a court could be made in Nicholas Nye's paddock," Alwynne reminded them. Roger thought it would be rather fun to live there, tennis or no tennis--didn't the tulips think so? The tulips did, rather.