"If you had any idea how Colin used to suffer, you really wouldn't wonder at my anxiety," she observed. "For days together he could hardly endure a glimmer of light. One dreads what might bring that back. And Colin never can do anything without working himself into a state of excitement." She reverted to the merits of Giles. "There is something about him so grand, so unlike the common run of men. He has such control over himself. Colin is a dear fellow too; still, his is the smaller and weaker nature." "I shouldn't have thought so; he seems to me anything but weak." "That may be hardly the right word; and if he is small, it is only by comparison with Giles. Almost any man seems dwarfed beside him. Yes, even my own boy. Is that odd? Why should love be blind? I do not see Colin's faults the less, because he is dear to me. As for Giles' faults, really I find it hard to say what they are, except a hot temper, conquered long ago." Phyllys was silent. Morning recollections supplied a commentary. "Dear fellow, he is so unselfish," went on Mrs. Keith. "So wonderfully kind. Giles' wife, by-and-by, will be the happiest of women. As for Colin's wife, it is to be hoped that she will not mind his moods and trying ways." But if Mrs. Keith wished to turn Phyllys from Colin to Giles, she went to work in a wrong fashion. Talk presently branched to Kathleen Alyn and her father, and Phyllys felt this to be a safer topic. She was learning caution. "Kathleen is a fascinating woman," averred Mrs. Keith, beginning to outline an elaborate pattern upon a square of silk. "Everybody likes her. Mr. Dugdale can be disagreeable when he chooses." "I should think most people could." Phyllys liked Mr. Dugdale. "Tiresome!" muttered Mrs. Keith. "This silk will not do. I must get the other piece." "What piece? Can I find it?" Mrs. Keith raised absent eyes. She was thinking what a pretty tractable wife Phyllys might make for Giles. For reasons of her own, unknown to other people, she had set her heart on this consummation. "Thanks very much, if it will not be a trouble. I don't want to disarrange these things by moving. It is a square of crimson silk, and you will see it on the shelf, just inside one of my black oak cabinets. There are two in my room, you know. The one that is unlocked, on the right side as you go in." Phyllys ran upstairs, thinking still of Giles, and suddenly found herself face to face with him. He looked so solemn that she could not resist a smile, and his face relaxed. "I have seen nothing of you yet," he observed. "But to-morrow—" "Are you going out now?" "I am obliged, unfortunately. But, if I might count on you in the morning for a walk—would you come? We have no fells or mountain streams; still, you shall see something pretty."