The old man smiled amid his loud sniffs. He was too old to have retained any save an artistic interest in women. But an artistic interest in them he certainly had; and at an earlier period he had acquainted himself with life, as his eye showed. Rachel blushed a third time that morning, and more deeply than before. He was seriously nattering her now. Endearing qualities that had expired in him long ago seemed to be resuscitated and to animate his ruined features. Rachel dimly understood how it was that some woman had once married him and borne him a lot of children, and how it was that he had been so intimate and valued a friend of the revered husband of such a woman as Mrs. Maldon. She was, in the Five Towns phrase, "flustered." She almost believed what Thomas Batchgrew had said. She did believe it. She had misjudged him on the Thursday night when he spread the lure of the seven per cent. in front of Louis. At any rate, he assuredly did not care, personally, whether Louis accepted the debentures or not. "However," the councillor went on, "he's got to know his own business best. And I don't know as it's any affair o' mine. But I was just thinking of you. When the husband has a good investment, th' wife generally comes in for something.... And what's more, it 'ud ha' stopped him from doing anything silly with his brass! _You_ know." "Yes," she murmured. "I'm talking to ye because I've taken a fancy to ye," said the councillor. "I knew what you were the first time I set eyes on ye. Oh, I don't mind telling ye now--what harm is there in it? I'd a sort of a fancy as one day you and John's Ernest might ha' hit it off. I had it in my mind like." A crude compliment, possibly in bad taste, possibly offensive; but Rachel was singularly moved by the revelation thus made. Before she could find a reply John's Ernest came into the shop, followed by an aproned assistant. III Then she was sitting by John's Ernest's side in the big motor-car, with her possessions at her feet. The enthronement had happened in a few moments. John's Ernest was going to Hanbridge. "Ye can run Mrs. Fores up home on yer way," Thomas Batchgrew had suggested. "But Bycars Lane is miles out of your way!" Rachel had cried. Both men had smiled. "Won't make a couple of minutes' difference in the car," John's Ernest had modestly murmured.