Laura eternally in that empty arm-chair. . . . Laura available every night and every morning for kisses that need not be in the least avuncular. . . . Laura’s smile, Laura’s pretty face, the way Laura’s eyebrows fascinatingly just did not meet when she was perplexed, his to contemplate for the rest of his life. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed and, having looked on this picture, looked on that. Those rooms of his without Laura in them. . . . Only Barker. . . . He and Barker, alone together for ever more. . . . Mr. Priestley sighed again. And why, Mr. Priestley put it to himself, had he been at such pains actually to obtain a real, genuine special licence, made out in his own name and that of Laura Howard? True, Cynthia had made rather a point of it, but it was really quite unnecessary. Just to mention that he had one would have been quite enough. He had not even shown it to her. It was very strange. Why had he done that? Mr. Priestley was an honest man, even with himself. He knew quite well why he had done it. Because he wanted very badly indeed to marry Laura, and the breathless thrill he had obtained by buying a special licence made out in her name had been cheap at the price. He reached his rooms in a thoroughly unhappy state. His triumph at Duffley was as dust and ashes in his mouth. Dust and ashes make very poor eating. For, of course, when Laura heard his story, she would naturally have nothing more to do with him. She was a high-spirited girl, and—— Of course she wouldn’t. Laura received him with undisguised relief. During his absence she had succeeded in working herself up into a very pretty state of nerves. In the old days Laura and nerves were two unmixable components, like fire and water, or stockbrokers and water, to put it more forcibly; now she felt she could write an encyclopedia on them and then only have touched the fringe of her knowledge. “Oh, Matthew!” she exclaimed, the moment Mr. Priestley entered the study. “Thank goodness you’re still all right! I’d made sure you’d been arrested this time.” Mr. Priestley looked at her wistfully. What a low hound he was! It was perfectly right and proper for Laura to play jokes upon him, of course; but for him to divert the joke to back-fire upon its own originator! A terribly low hound. “Would you have been sorry if I had, Laura?” he asked. “You know I should. I—I should never have forgiven myself,” said Laura, who during the communings with her own soul that afternoon had reached at any rate one sensible decision. “You see, it’s—it’s all my own fault. I’ve been on the verge of telling you the truth a hundred times, and goodness only knows why I never did.” She paused awkwardly. “You see,” she blurted out, “the whole thing started as just a silly joke.” “A joke?” echoed Mr. Priestley stupidly. Somehow this was a development he had not anticipated.