That Ethel and her husband had tacitly agreed to this arrangement, Stainton did not notice as significant. Mrs. Newberry, after the spasm of chaperonage that followed his first unwatched motor drive with Muriel, had tactfully begun to withdraw from the role of duenna, and the suitor had consoled himself in the ocular demonstration of the proverb that two are company and three none. Hitherto he had enjoyed his privilege like the temperate man that he was, which is to say that he enjoyed it without abusing it. He belonged by birth to that class of society which, though strong enough in the so-called natural affections, seems to think it indecent to display emotion in public, and he was unwilling, for both his own sake and that of the girl he loved, to hurry an affair that might lose much by speed and gain much by circumspection. Now, however, the time came to test the virtues of his plan of campaign, and Stainton was glad that the combination of the time and the place and the loved one was not marred by any extraneous interference. The wooer was at his best. The clothes that are designed for those short hours of the twenty-four when one is at rest without being asleep, became him; they gave full value to his erect figure, his shapely hips, and his robust shoulders; and, since he was about to win or lose that which he now most prized in life, and since he had always felt sure that the only courage he lacked was physical, his strong face looked far younger than its years and his iron-grey eyes shone not with fear, but with excitement. While he leaned against a corner of the white mantelpiece above the glowing fireplace, so much as it was possible for his upright figure to lean, he was thinking that Muriel, opposite him, was more beautiful than he had ever yet seen her--thinking, but without terror, how dreadful it would be should he lose her and how wonderful should he win. Young enough for her in that kindly light he almost looked and was sure he was; worthy of her, though he felt more worthy than most, he was certain that no man could be. He saw her as he had seen her that first night at the opera, but more desirable. Seated in the farther corner of a long, low couch drawn close to the chimney-place and at right-angles to it, three or four rose-red pillows piled behind the suggestion of bare shoulders only just escaping from her gown of grey ninon draped over delicate pink, Muriel's slim body fronted the dancing fire and warmed in the light that played from the flames. Her blue-black hair waved about her white temples and the narrow lines of her brows; her lips, the lower slightly indrawn, were like young red roses after the last shower of Spring.