“That is the usual trick,” he went on sternly, “of you English people! You snatch at your little pleasures, without any scruple, and feel yourselves quite honourable. And then, directly it becomes a question of paying for them, by any form of public confession, you become fastidiously scrupulous.” “But to give one’s girl away, to betray her in this shameless manner oneself! It seems to me the ultimate limit of scurvy meanness!” “It only seems to you so, because the illusion of chivalry enters into it; in other words, because public opinion would condemn you! This honourable shielding of the woman we have sinned with, at every kind of cost to others, has been the cause of endless misery. Do you think you are preparing a happy marriage for your Gladys in your ‘honourable’ reticence? By saving her from this union with Mr. Dangelis--whom, by the way, she surely cannot love, if she loves you--you will be doing her the best service possible. Even if she refuses to make you her husband in his place--and I suppose her infatuation would stop at that!--there are other ways, besides marriage, of hiding her embarrassed condition. Let her travel for a year till her trouble is well over!” Luke Andersen reflected in silence, his drooping figure indicating a striking collapse of his normal urbanity. At last he spoke. “There may be something in what you suggest,” he remarked slowly. “Obviously, _I_ can’t be the one,” he added, after a further pause, “to strike this astounding bargain with the American.” “I don’t see why not,” said the theologian, with a certain maliciousness in his tone, “I don’t see why not. You have been the one to commit the sin; you ought naturally to be the one to perform the penance.” The luckless youth distorted his countenance into such a wry grimace, that he caused it to resemble the stone gargoyles which protruded their lewd tongues from the church roof above them. “It’s a scurvy thing to do, all the same,” he muttered. “It is only relatively--‘scurvy,’ as you call it,” replied Mr. Taxater. “In an absolute sense, the ‘scurviness’ would be to let your Gladys deceive an honest man and make herself unhappy for life, simply to save you two from any sort of exposure. But as a matter of fact, I am _not_ inclined to place this very delicate piece of negotiation in your hands. It would be so fatally easy for you--under the circumstances--to make some precipitate blunder that would spoil it all. “Don’t think,” he went on, observing the face of his interlocutor relapsing into sudden cheerfulness, “that I let you off this penance because of its unchivalrous character. You break the laws of chivalry quite as completely by putting me into the possession of the facts. “I shall, of course,” he added, “require from you some kind of written statement. The thing must be put upon an unimpeachable ground.” Luke Andersen’s relief was not materially modified by this demand. He began to fumble in his pocket for his cigarette-case.