"I don't want her to accept me because she's bored." "No more do I. But one sees the proportions of things better when one's dull. And--yes. I esteem you; I like you. You are ingenuous, and innocuous.--No, really that was a yielding to the devil of alliteration. I mean you are a real good sort. The other man has the harmlessness of the serpent. As for me, I have the wisdom of the dove. You profit by it and come to Long Barton in September." "It seems like a plot to catch her," said Temple. "A friend of yours told me you were straight. And you are. I thought perhaps she flattered you." "Who?--No, I'm not to ask questions." "Lady St. Craye." "Do you know," he said, slowly pulling downstream, "there's one thing I didn't tell you. I came away from Paris because I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't in love with _her_." "Not you," said Miss Desmond. "She'd never have suited you. And now she'll throw herself away on the man with the green eyes and the past. I mean Pasts. And it's a pity. She's a woman after my own heart." "She's extraordinarily charming," said Temple with a very small sigh. "Yes extraordinarily, as you say. And so you came away from Paris! I begin to think _you_ have a little of the wisdom of the dove too. Pull now--or we shall be late for breakfast." He pulled. * * * * * "Now _that_," said the Reverend Cecil that evening to his sister-in-law, "that is the kind of youth I should wish to see my Lizzie select for her help-mate." "Well," said Miss Desmond, "if you keep that wish strictly to yourself, I should think it had a better chance than most wishes of being gratified." CHAPTER XXVII THE PINK SILK STORY. To call on the concierge at Betty's old address, and to ask for news of her had come to seem to Vernon the unbroken habit of a life-time. There never was any news: there never would be any news. But there always might be. The days went by, days occupied in these fruitless gold-edged enquiries, in the other rose-accompanied enquiries after the health of Lady St. Craye, and in watching for the postman who should bring the answer to his formal proposal of marriage. To his deep surprise and increasing disquietude, no answer came. Was the Reverend Cecil dead, or merely inabordable? Had Betty despised his offer too deeply to answer it? The lore learned in, as it seemed, another life assured him that a woman never despises an offer too much to say "No" to it.