Wellgood opined that it would prove much what a certain philosopher declared the life of man to be--nasty, short, and brutish. In the garden Mrs. Belfield, carefully enfolded in rugs, dozed the doze of the placid. Isobel and Harry whispered across her unconscious form. "You shouldn't drink so much champagne, Harry." "Hang it, I want it! I said nothing wrong, did I?" "You don't keep control of your eyes. I think your father noticed. Why look at me?" "You know I can't help it. And I can't stand it all much longer." "You can end it as soon as you like. Am I preventing you?" "I beg your pardon, Miss Vintry? I'm afraid I'm drowsy." "I was just saying I hoped I wasn't preventing Mr. Harry from strolling with Vivien, Mrs. Belfield." "Oh yes, my dear, of course!" The placid lids fell over the placid eyes again. "End it? How?" "By behaving as Vivien's _fiancé_ ought." "Or by not being Vivien's _fiancé_ any longer?" "What, Harry love? What's that about not being Vivien's _fiancé_ any longer?" Mrs. Belfield was roused by words admitting of so startling an interpretation. "Well, we shall be married soon, shan't we, mother?" "How stupid of me, Harry dear!" Sleep again descended. Harry swore softly; Isobel laughed low. "This is ridiculous!" she remarked. "Couldn't you take just one turn with Vivien's companion? Your mother might hear straight just once." "I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night," said Harry. "I'll take Wellgood on at billiards." "Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may bring back your colour, Harry." Harry looked at her in exasperation--and in longing. "I wish there wasn't a woman in the world!" he growled. "It's men like you who say that," she retorted, smiling. "Go and forget us for an hour." He went without more words--with only such a shrug as he had given when he said good-bye to Mrs. Freere. Isobel sat on, by dozing Mrs. Belfield, the picture of a dutiful neglected companion, while Wellgood and Harry played billiards, and Belfield, wheezing over an unread evening paper, honoured her with a tribute of distrustful curiosity. Left alone in the flesh, she could boast that she occupied several minds that evening. Perhaps she knew it, as she sat silent, thoughtfully gazing across to where Vivien and Andy sat together, their dim figures just visible in enshrouding darkness. "He saw--but he won't speak!" she was thinking. "How funny of Harry to say he sighed as a lover!" Vivien remarked to Andy. Andy had the pride and pleasure of informing her that her lover was indulging in a quotation from another lover, more famous and more temperate. "'I sighed as a lover. I obeyed as a son.' I see! How funny! Do you think Gibbon was right, Mr. Hayes?" "The oldest question since men had sons and women had lovers, isn't it?" "Doesn't love come first--when once it has come?" "After honour, the poet tells us, Miss Wellgood." Vivien knew that quotation, anyhow. "It's beautiful, but isn't it--just a little priggish?"