“So have I,” interrupted Richmond. “She’s a pretty, bright, shrewd girl. She fools everybody. But I’d have thought _you_ would have been on guard.” “I assure you, sir, Miss Kinnear----” “Oh--by the way”--Richmond broke into Peter’s sentence as if a thought on another subject had happened to flash through his mind. “Bring those mortgages to my office before two o’clock to-morrow,” said he carelessly. “I’ve an appointment at two-thirty. That gives us a clear half hour--plenty of time.” Peter seemed to wither. The internal havoc was more dire than the external; for, internally, he had shriveled. “Miss Kinnear is pretending to love you,” went on his tormentor, harking back to the matrimonial business. “I want to find out just how far you’ve walked into her trap.” “She has made no pretenses,” protested Peter. “I’m sure if she married a man it’d be because she cared for him.” “Fudge, Peter--fudge!” laughed Richmond. “You’re a man of the world. You know what she wants.” Then, with gimlet eyes and with bony finger poking into the heavy muscle of Peter’s arm: “If you wish to know what anybody wants you don’t listen to what they _say_, you look at what they _need_.” This was the kind of shrewdness that made impression upon Peter, the sensitively suspicious. He winced, looked uncomfortable and sheepish. “There’s nothing in that artist story,” scoffed Richmond. “You know Beatrice. She’s very proud. Take my advice, don’t speak to her about it. If she got a notion that you were flirting with Allie--” Richmond made a gesture suggestive of vague, vast dangers. “I hope, sir, you’ve not got the impression that I--that I--” Peter came to a full stop. “I’ve got no impression at all except that you wish to marry Beatrice on the eighteenth.” “The twentieth,” corrected Peter. “The twentieth, then.” Richmond had now changed his manner to the benevolent paternal. “And do be sensible, young man, and make no trouble between Beatrice and Allie.” Thus it came to pass that when Peter and Beatrice were strolling down the Italian garden after lunch, Peter lost no time in obeying Richmond’s orders. Nor did he set about it with any reluctance, for Beatrice was once more herself and, in a costume that gave her every charm its best chance, was enough to turn a far steadier head than Peter’s had been in several years where she was concerned. “Don’t you think,” said he, “that we’d better change the date to the eighteenth?” She made no immediate reply. They walked slowly toward the arch at the farther end, he glancing at her from time to time with a notion that she had not heard. At last he asked: “Did you hear?” She nodded, seated herself on an old stone seat from the garden of an ancient palace, where it had no doubt participated in many a fateful interview between man and woman. “What are you thinking about?” inquired he.