“I was delighted when I heard of the friendship. I’ve always feared she’d marry some duffer and come to her senses too late.” “I should say she was less likely to make a mistake than most girls, and Leonard, for instance, is a fine fellow.” Gita glanced across the room at Polly, whose flower-like orbs were lifted sweetly to the compelling gaze of the distinguished young lawyer. “He’d do very well,” she said musingly. “Polly always said she’d never marry until she met a man of that sort.” She shot a glance at Pelham, who was calmly consuming a plover. “I’m sure she couldn’t do better.” “But——” If Polly were as serious as Elsie suspected was it not her loyal duty to aid her in what might be the supreme crisis of her youth? No doubt Pelham was in love with her without realizing it, so scant was his experience with women. “Well?” Pelham looked up, and in his own eyes there was something of challenge. “I mean—well—you see—I hardly know how to say it, but I believe Polly is really interested in you.” “I have amused her because I am a rank outsider, something entirely different from what she has been accustomed to.” And he helped himself to chicken salad. Gita was torn between what might be a betrayal of Polly and the desire to come to her assistance. She had heard that men sometimes needed but a seed deftly planted to be flattered into complete surrender. And Pelham was not the type to feel only the joy of the hunter. Affection for Polly conquered. “I believe she is really in love with you,” she said. He turned pale but looked at her steadily. “If I thought that were true I should refuse to discuss the subject at all. But it is not. . . . Am I to understand that you have turned matchmaker?” “Not I. But I’d like to see Polly happy.” “Do you mean that you want me to marry her?” His voice had a harsh directness, quite unlike the mellow subtle tones of Eustace Bylant. To her surprise Gita felt her face flush, and she dropped her eyes. “Yes—I think I do.” But she frowned, not at him but herself. “I never saw but one woman I wanted to marry and as—that is forever denied me I shall never marry at all. I’m not the sort of man, I hope, to make love to the wife of my friend, but—I’d be grateful if you would take no further interest in my casual friendships with other women.” He was very white but his voice was hard and deliberate and his eyes angry. He lifted his fork and his sensitive fingers were steady.