The personal reminiscences with which his conversation was liberally strewed were ingeniously calculated to place him in a picturesque light. Parker's aunt says that stout men are more in need of a picturesque light than thin ones. Maitland certainly was stout and short, with a thick face and no neck, and a perfectly round head, set on his shoulders like an ill-balanced orange, or William Tell's apple. We should never have noticed what he looked like if it had not been for his illusion that he was irresistible to the opposite sex; at least, he was always adroitly letting drop things which showed, if you put two and two together, and he never made the sum very difficult--what ravages he inadvertently made in feminine bosoms, how careful he was, how careful he had _learnt_ to be not to raise expectations. He was always pathetically anxious to impress on us that he had given a good deal of pain. But whether it was really an hallucination on his part that he was hopelessly adored by women, or whether the hallucination consisted in the belief that he had succeeded in convincing his little college world of his powers of fascination, I cannot tell you. I don't pretend to know everything like Barrett. Parker's aunt told Parker in confidence, who told Barrett and me in confidence, that she had once, on his own suggestion, asked Maitland to tea, but had never repeated the invitation, though he told her repeatedly that he frequently passed her door on the way to the cathedral, because he had hinted to mutual friends that a devoted friendship was, alas! all he felt able to give in that quarter, but was not what was desired by that charming lady. And now here was Maitland advancing towards us with one of Parker's aunt's yellow roses in his buttonhole. We both instantly realised what had happened. I had left the roses at his door by mistake. How gratified she would be when she heard of it! I giggled. "Don't say a word about them," hissed Barrett, her fervent admirer, as Maitland came up to us. "Won't you both come in to tea," he said genially. "Parker's out." We left Parker's melon on his doorstep to chaperon itself, and turned back with him. And sure enough, on his table was the bunch of roses. "Glorious, aren't they?" said Maitland, waving his signet ring toward them. I do believe he had asked us in because of them. He loved cheap effects. We both looked at them in silence. "The odd thing is that they were left here without a line or a card or anything while I was out." "Then you don't know who sent them," said Barrett, casting a warning glance at me. "Well, yes and no. I don't actually know for certain, but I think I can guess. I fancy I know my own faults as well as most men, and I flatter myself I am not a coxcomb, but still--" I giggled again. I should be disappointed in Parker, who was on very easy terms with his aunt if he did not score off her before she was much older.