"Two can't play gooseberry, you know, uncle; it is a _rôle_ that, like the daisy-picker's, cannot be divided." Old Warrender rose with a smile, and Lucy dropped the pair a profound courtesy. "Farewell, Strephon. Good-bye, Chloe. You would both make a pretty picture in sylvan costume, but in your nineteenth century clothes you look terribly prosaic." "Lovers still though, I think, my dear; lovers still, please God," muttered the old man, as he gave his arm to Lucy. The pair were left alone. Were this history mere fable Reginald would at once have proceeded to possess himself of his pretty wife's unresisting hand; he would have pressed it to his lips with rapture. What he really did was to take his case from his pocket, provide himself with a large and uncommonly fullflavoured cigar, which he lighted with much care and deliberation. "You must have found it beastly dull at that hole, Georgie," he remarked at length; "how on earth did you get through your time?" Should she tell him? Could she tell him how she had got through that terrible time? Her honest nature urged her to it; but Georgie's love for Haggard, deep as it was, was not untinged with fear. Her gentler spirit was dominated by Lucy's strong will. Her intense respect for her promise, the promise snatched from her in the moment of her excitement and tribulation, quelled the impulse. "Of course it was dull without you, Reginald. But you, at all events, have enjoyed yourself. How brown you've got," she said, gazing up at him with her old look of girlish rapture. The look did it. Woman's admiration was ever meat and drink to big Reginald Haggard, particularly the admiration of a pretty woman. Now Georgie was a very pretty woman. Accustomed as he was to open appreciation by the sex, it never seemed to pall on him. Though most men expect it, or at least the semblance of it, as a sort of right from their wives, and consequently cease to value it, yet Haggard, not having seen Georgie for many months, was evidently pleased. "Yes, we had plenty of sun out there," he said, as he passed his hand meditatively over his shaven chin. "It was hot, beastly hot. But they weren't a bad lot out there, you know," and then he went off into a long description. Nothing pleases a man better than to talk to his own wife about himself, except, perhaps, when privileged to enlarge upon the same delightful subject to somebody else's wife. So Haggard ran on; but even personal experiences must have an ending, and Haggard, at the height of good humour, condescended to compliment his wife upon the little Lucius. "Capital little chap that, Georgie," he said. "Howled awfully when he saw me. I suppose they all do, though?"