For the honeymoon the Yorkshire coast was chosen, by whom it was not very clear. René had wanted Derbyshire; Linda had proposed the Lakes, but, a fortnight before the marriage, Mrs. Smallman had appeared on the scene and taken charge, instructed them, tactfully and almost tacitly, in the correct deportment of those about to be married. She kept the couple apart, spent days and evenings with Linda, and made her keep René distracted. The Smallmans had spent their honeymoon on the Yorkshire coast; they knew of a charming little private hotel overlooking Ravenscar; theirs had been the perfect honeymoon, one which had never come to an end. So might--must--it be with René's; and so it would be if goodwill, advice, kindly glances, friendly instruction, could bring it about. The Professor expanded: "It is wonderful when all that you have loved in a dream, as it were, materializes and is there in your hands. Only you feel so confoundedly unworthy. And then, when you are married and settled down, you get so abominably accustomed to it. No one could be more devoted than my wife and I, but we find that if we do not keep ourselves alive with outside interests, we begin to wear each other down. It isn't easy--marriage. I can say all this now, because if I don't I never shall. And, after all, you know, I like you, Fourmy. We shall work together and be good friends, but we lose something, you know. A certain kind of intimacy we can never have again." This talk reminded René of the occasion when George had taken him as a small boy to the swimming baths, made him stand on the edge practicing strokes, and then pushed him into the deep end. The night before his departure, his mother came into his room and sat on his bed and looked long at him: "I can't bear to think of your bed empty to-morrow," she said. "Better send it to the new house," replied he. "I can hardly realize that you are a man and going to have a wife. It seems only the other day that you were a little boy, learning to cook in the kitchen. Do you remember? And now I suppose you'll have late dinner. It is queer. I used to be able to think of you as a boy at school, but I can never imagine you as a teacher, in a gown, too. And it's even harder to think of you----" "You shall come and stay with us." "Oh, I couldn't!" She looked toward the door. "You could come without father." "Don't be hard on your father, René." "No. That's all over." "I'm so glad." She stooped over him and kissed him. Then she took his head in her hands and pressed her cheek against his, and on his forehead he felt her warm tears. She murmured: "I've always tried to do my best." Then she left him, and he felt the tears rising to his own eyes, and he lay in worship of the beautiful kindness of women. They seemed to hold in fee so much of life's loveliness, to be able to open to a man fair regions that else were hidden to him all his days. He was eager for the morrow's adventure.