"He is a very interesting man," Mrs Upton declared. "It was you who were a little dull. You scarcely spoke to him." She laughed suddenly. "Perhaps he is one of those men who like an audience; otherwise I don't see what he gets out of it, if you are not more eloquent alone with him than you were to-day." "Yes, he needs an audience. He always does most of the talking," Brenda said. After that Sunday it became a weekly custom for Matheson to call in the afternoon. Generally he took Brenda out somewhere, and when he brought her back he stayed for a chat with her mother, and occasionally had tea with them. He took them to the theatre, and to any entertainment he thought might give them pleasure. And once, despite a natural shrinking on Mrs Upton's part to be seen in public, he persuaded them to dine with him at the Mount Nelson. That evening stuck in his memory. It was the first occasion on which he had seen Brenda in evening dress. She looked well, and was animated and almost brilliant. He felt proud to be seen with her. Mrs Upton was considerably perplexed. It was quite manifest to her that Matheson was making up his mind to propose to her daughter, if indeed it was not already made up; but she could discover in his undoubted affection for Brenda nothing of the quality of passionate love. This disturbed her. Matheson's quiet affection seemed to her a wholly inadequate return for the devotion of the girl's whole heart. It was no secret from her mother that Brenda was very much in love. It was the girl's first and only love affair, and it absorbed her entirely. Should anything interpose between her love and its fulfilment the result might easily lead to a lifelong disappointment. Mrs Upton, realising this perfectly, could only stand by and watch the course of events shaping themselves to the making or the marring of her daughter's happiness. There were times when she wished Matheson had not come into the girl's life; though all the glamour and romance her life had known had come to her through him. She wished too that he had not been so sure of Brenda. The girl's devotion shone in her look.