"All right, then, you needn't." The child stared with wide eyes. "But while she's in authority you'll treat her with a proper respect. If she's a foe you're still bound--more than ever bound in honour--to show her every courtesy. And now go and kiss your mother." Jill slid down, her sobs checked. This was a new point of view. Her father watched her thoughtfully. "Of course," he said, "it's rather hard on Miss Bellew, when you think of it. She's paid to teach you--it's her living--she doesn't do it out of pleasure. You are the daughter of the house. She's my guest..." He shrugged his shoulders. Jill turned without a word, and went back into the schoolroom. From the passage outside, her parents heard her explain the matter. "Miss Bellew"--she stood there in her crumpled pinafore, stiff and forlorn, tears still on her cheeks. "I'm sorry I was rude to you. I'm sorry I said you were a beast. But you hit Roddy--that finished it--and I don't like you--I never shall! But I won't call you names again. No--I don't _want_ to be kissed ... but I'm going to be a good girl ... as long (sniff) ... as you're Father's guest." She kept her word. Weeks later she explained the truce to Colonel Uniacke. "We're 'honourable foes,' you see--like Coeur de Lion and Saladin." The story had become a classic, and in the quiet garden one evening Aunt Elizabeth repeated it to the much-amused McTaggart. "It's just like Jill"--he commented--"she's got a man's code of honour. I've never met a girl like her ... it's a character in a thousand." Aunt Elizabeth looked up slyly--and caught the light in the blue eyes. "I think we're both of us fond of Jill," she said, letting the words sink in. Then started briskly to talk of Mrs. Uniacke's improvement, drifting off into her pet aversion--Woman's Suffrage and Militant ways. But her stray shot had missed the mark. The purely brotherly terms on which McTaggart met his girl friend were still untouched by sentiment. He hardly knew how much he cared; content with a sense of friendship so totally distinct from all his other dealings with her sex. He knew that Jill liked him. Not for a moment did he guess the presence of a deeper feeling. She supplied the want he had keenly felt in his own lack of home life. It was good to know that in one house he was always a welcome guest without the fear of intrigue or wearisome social convention. For during the long months abroad many traps had been laid for him, and it bred a shrewd distrust of girls, based on more than vanity. Now as he strolled slowly along toward his club through the Mayfair streets his thoughts ran back to Cydonia. He walked past the Cadells' door. The blinds were down, the shutters fixed. Obedient to the decree of fashion they had moved on with the social tide. But a feeling of thankfulness possessed him. He knew well that he had escaped a life with a woman who would have bored him, chained to the "obvious orthodox"! And he wondered...