When Tudor spoke again, it was upon a totally different matter. His voice was slightly aggressive as he said: "That Evesham boy seems to be for ever turning up at the Vicarage now. He's an ill-mannered cub. I wonder you encourage him." "Do I encourage him?" Avery asked. He made a movement of irritation. "He would scarcely be such a constant visitor if you didn't." Avery smiled faintly and not very humorously in the darkness. "It is Jeanie he comes to see," she observed. "Oh, obviously." Tudor's retort was so ironical as to be almost rude. She received it in silence, and after a moment he made a half-grudging amendment. "He never showed any interest in Jeanie before, you know. I don't think she is the sole attraction." "No?" said Avery. Her response was perfectly courteous, but so vague that it sounded to Lennox Tudor as if she were thinking of something else. He clenched his hand hard upon the handle of his whip. "People tolerate him for the sake of his position," he said bitterly. "But to my mind he is insufferable. His father was a scapegrace, as everyone knows. His mother was a circus girl. And his grandmother--an Italian--was divorced by Sir Beverley before they had been married two years." "Oh!" Avery emerged from her vagueness and turned towards him. "Lady Evesham was Italian, was she? That accounts for his appearance, doesn't it? That air of the old Roman patrician about him; you must have noticed it?" "He's handsome enough," admitted Tudor. "Oh, very handsome," said Avery. "I should say that for that type his face was almost faultless. I wondered where he got it from. Sir Beverley is patrician too, but in a different way." She stopped to bow to a tall, gaunt lady at the side of the road. "That is Miss Whalley. Didn't you see her? I expect she has just come from the Vicarage. She was going to discuss the scheme for the Christmas decorations with the Vicar." "She's good at scheming," growled Tudor. Avery became silent again. At the Vicarage gates however very suddenly and sweetly she spoke. "Dr. Tudor, forgive me,--but isn't it rather a pity to let oneself get intolerant? It does spoil life so." He looked at her. "There's not much in my life that could spoil," he said gloomily. She laughed a little, but not derisively. "But there's always something, isn't there? Have you no sense of humour?" He pulled up at the Vicarage gates. "I have a sense of the ridiculous," he said bluntly. "And I detest it in the person of Miss Whalley." "I believe you detest a good many people," Avery said, as she descended. He laughed himself at that. "But I am capable of appreciating the few," he said. "Mind the step! And don't trouble to wait for me! I've got to tie this animal up." He stopped to do so, and Avery opened the gate and walked slowly up the path. At the porch she paused to await him, and turned her face for a moment to the darkening sky. But the Star of Hope was veiled. CHAPTER XII A PAIR OF GLOVES