What could I do? There she stood, fair, slim, bobbed-haired, green-kirtled, serious-eyed, carelessly juicy-lipped, holding up the peach. I, to whom all wall-fruit is death, bit into the side that blushed. She anxiously watched my expression. "Topping, isn't it?" "Yum, yum," said I. "Isn't it?" she said, taking back the peach. That's the beauty of childhood. It demands no elaborate expression. Simplicity is its only coinage. A rhapsody on the exquisiteness of the fruit's flavour would have bored Evadne stiff. Her soul yearned for the establishment between us of a link of appreciation. "Yum, yum," said I, and the link was instantly supplied. She threw away a peach stone and sighed. "Let's go." "Why?" I asked. "I'm not looking for any more trouble," she replied. We returned to the lawn and Lady Auriol and Colonel Lackaday. Not a hole could be picked in the perfect courtesy of their greeting; but it lacked passionate enthusiasm. Evadne and I sat down, and our exceedingly dull conversation was soon interrupted by the advent of the church goers. Towards lunch time Lackaday and I, chance companions, strolled towards the house. "What a charming woman," he remarked. "Lady Verity-Stewart," said I, with a touch of malice--our hostess was the last woman with whom he had spoken--"is a perfect dear." "So she is, but I meant Lady Auriol." "I've known her since she was that high," I said spreading out a measuring hand. "Her development has been most interesting." A shade of annoyance passed over the Colonel's ugly good-humoured face. To treat the radiant creature who had swum into his ken as a subject for psychological observation savoured of profanity. With a smile I added: "She's one of the very best." His brow cleared and his teeth gleamed out my tribute. "I've met very few English ladies in the course of my life," said he half apologetically. "The other day, a brother officer finding me fooling about Pall Mall insisted on my lunching with him at the Carlton. He had a party. I sat next to a Mrs. Tankerville, who I gather is a celebrity." "She is," said I. "And she said, 'You must really come and have tea with me to-morrow. I've a crowd of most interesting people coming.'" "She did," cried Lackaday, regarding me with awestricken eyes, as Saul must have looked at the Witch of Endor. "But I didn't go. I couldn't talk to her. I was as dumb as a fish. Oh, damned dumb! And the dumber I was the more she talked at me. I had risen from the ranks, hadn't I? She thought careers like mine such a romance. I just sat and sweated and couldn't eat. She made me feel as if she was going to exhibit me as the fighting skeleton in her freak museum. If ever I see that woman coming towards me in the street, I'll turn tail and run like hell." I laughed. "You mustn't compare Mrs. Tankerville with Lady Auriol Dayne." "_Mon Dieu!_ I should think not!" he cried with a fervent gesture. "Lady Auriol----"