“So there you see, and what do you think of that?” asked Lady Linden, coming to the end of her remarks. “I think it would be very nice!” “Very nice!” Lady Linden snorted. “Very nice! What a feeble remark. My good Marjorie, do you take no intelligent interest in anything? Upon my word, now I come to look back I wonder at myself, I do indeed. I wonder at myself to think that a man like Hugh Alston, an intellectual, deep-thinking man, a man with common-sense and plenty of it—what was I saying? Oh yes, I wonder at myself for ever hoping or believing that a man like Hugh could fall in love with a silly little donkey like you. And yet men do, even clever men—I’ve known several quite clever men fall in love with perfect fools of women. But I was wrong, and you are right. I see it now. Tom Arundel is the man for you; you are fitted for one another. He is not quite a fool, but you are. He’s not clever enough to be annoyed by your folly. Hugh, on the other hand, would positively dislike you after a month. There! don’t howl, for goodness’ sake—don’t snivel, child! Run away and play with your doll” “Patience!” said Lady Linden, when her niece went out—“I have the patience of ten Jobs rolled into one. She’s a good little soul, but an awful idiot! And bless my wig!” added her ladyship, who did not wear one, but her own luxuriant hair, “what’s that hopeless idiot of a Perkins doing with those standard roses?” She sallied out, battle in her eyes, to tell Perkins, the under-gardener, something about the culture of roses, and incidentally to point out what her opinion of himself was in plain and straightforward language. Meanwhile, Marjorie had hurried out. It was not true! She was not so stupid and so silly that Hugh could never have fallen in love with her. Why, he had fallen in love with her! He had wanted her for his wife, and she—she in her blindness and her folly, in her stupidity, which her aunt had but now been flinging in her teeth, had not realised that he was the one man in her world, the only man, and that she loved him as never, never could she love Tom Arundel or anyone else. The little ancient disreputable car had been repaired by Rodding, the village handyman, who by some conjuring trick had made it run again. Marjorie started it. She had made up her mind. She would go to Hurst Dormer, she would see Hugh and—and quite what she would do she did not know. Everything was on the knees of the gods, only she knew that she was very unhappy, a very miserable, unhappy, foolish girl, who had got what she had asked for, and found that she did not want it now she had it. Piff, piff, paff, paff went the car, and Marjorie rolled off with a succession of jerks, leaving behind an odoriferous cloud of smoke and exhaust gases that lay like a blue mist along the drive, and presently made Lady Linden cough and speak in uncomplimentary terms of motoring and motorists generally. On to Hurst Dormer Marjorie plugged, sad at heart, realising her folly.