"My dear Sybil," answered Madge Saunderson, coldly, "if you’re going to take that point of view I have nothing more to say. But I’d like to know what you’d have said if it had been Ruffles." The terrier in question regarded the speaker with an expectant eye, in which thoughts of cake shone brightly. "What happened then?" asked one of the audience. "We walked in silence down to the pool below," continued Madge. "And there—we found him—my little Toots. He floated to the side, and Mr. Benton was actually daring enough to stoop down and pull him out of the water. It was then that he added insult to injury," she went on, in a voice of suppressed fury. "’Rotten luck, Miss Saunderson,’ he said; ’but in a way it’s rather a happy release for the poor little brute, isn’t it? I’m afraid only your kind heart prevented him being put away years ago.’" A silence had settled on the room, a silence which was broken at length by Sybil. "He _was_ very old, wasn’t he?" she murmured. Madge Saunderson’s eyes flashed ominously. "Eighteen," she said. "And I quite fail to see that that’s any excuse. You wouldn’t let an old man of ninety drown, would you—just because he was old? And Toots was quite as human as any old man, and far less trouble." Such had been the official _communiqué_, issued to a feminine gathering at tea-time; in due course it travelled to the rest of the house-party. And, as is the way with such stories, it had not lost in the telling. Daisy Johnson, for instance, had retailed it with some gusto to the Rising Barrister. "What a pity about Mr. Benton, isn’t it?" she had murmured before dinner, moving a little so that the pink light from a lamp fell on her face. Pink, she reflected, was undoubtedly the colour she would have for all the shades when she had a house. The Rising Barrister regarded her casually. "What is a pity?" he asked. "Haven’t you heard?" she cried. "Why, this afternoon poor little Toots—Madge Saunderson’s dog—fell into the mill-stream." "Thank God!" ejaculated the Barrister, brutally. "Oh, I know he wasn’t an attractive dog!" she said. "Attractive!" he interrupted. "Why, the little beast’s snorts reverberated through the house!" "But still," she continued, firmly, "I don’t think Mr. Benton should have let it drown before his eyes without raising a finger to save it. He stood stock-still on the bank—hesitating; and then it was too late. Of course, I suppose it was a little dangerous." She shrugged a delightful pair of shoulders gracefully. "I don’t think most men would have hesitated." She glanced at the Rising Barrister as she spoke, and if he failed to alter the "most men" to his own advantage the fault was certainly not hers. It struck him suddenly that pink gave a most attractive lighting effect. "Er—perhaps not," he murmured. "Still, I expect he was quite right, you know. One—er—should be very careful what one says in cases of this sort."