Cecily laughed nervously. “My dear Dick,” she cried, springing to her feet, “I beg your pardon. What a dose of the woman question I’ve given you! It’s the first offence, kind gentleman. It shall not occur again. Come along.” Mayne had also risen, but he made no sign of moving. “Cecily,” he said, suddenly, “we’re very good friends, aren’t we?” She looked at him steadily. “Very good friends, Dick.” “I want you to promise me something.” “Yes?” “Take up your work again. Go on writing.” She hesitated. “Does it matter?” she asked, with a dreary smile. “_That_ doesn’t matter. I want a definite promise.” She was silent a moment. “Very well, I’ll try,” she answered at last, steadily. He nodded satisfaction. “That’s good enough for me. I’m not afraid,” he returned, and moved from the stile. They began to wade through the sea of grasses towards the garden, whose belt of trees lay at no great distance. “Look here, Cis!” he began, so suddenly that she started, and, glancing up, saw him squaring his shoulders in the resolute way for which as a girl she had often teased him. “There’s something I want to say to you. All of us--all of us, at least, who _matter_--get a hard knock from life some time or other, and if it’s hard enough most of us go to pieces for a bit. _I_ went to pieces once.” Cecily nervously pulled the rosy beads off a head of sorrel as she passed it, but he went straight on. “_You_ have been going to pieces for quite a considerable time. Oh, yes, I know,” as he saw her shrink a little. “But this is a straight talk. Now what’s the good of going to pieces, Cis? It doesn’t alter anything except oneself, and one’s chance of getting _something_, if not the thing we want, out of existence. Life gives hard blows. Very well, then, let us go out to meet it, in armor. I want you to get a suit, Cis.” He paused abruptly. “The people who wear armor are not, as a rule, engaging,” she said, with an attempt at a smile. “It depends on the kind they wear.” “It’s the getting it on, Dick.” “Yes,” he allowed, “it’s a bit stiff at first; but with perseverance----” “It’s a dull thing to fight in,” she urged, after a moment apparently given to consideration. “There are all sorts of suits, you know,” he went on in a lighter tone. “A large assortment always in stock. There’s a neat little thing called hard work, which is not to be despised, to begin with. Then there’s a highly decorated one known in the trade as ambition--and so forth.” Cecily laughed. “I’ll try some of them on. Do you think I shall ever look as well in them as you do?” she added in a gentle voice. “Better. There are joints in mine.” There was a touch of grimness in his tone which appealed to her. “I’m glad you’ve come home, Dick,” she said, gratefully. “You’re a nice, strong person.” “In spite of the joints?” he asked, with a suspicion of irony. “Because of them,” she answered, gravely. He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was half banteringly, half in earnest.