Mrs Errol smiled in her turn, and glanced at her husband with the tolerant contempt women show towards their men when they suspect them of falling a victim to the fascinations of a popular member of their sex. "You, too?" she said. "There was nothing in my question to justify that remark," said the vicar, who did not, however, appear to resent it. "Like Miss Dartle, I asked for information." "I think she is quite a nice girl," replied Mrs Errol ungrudgingly; "and, judging by the way in which the men flock after her, they share my opinion. Doctor Fairbridge is crazy about her." "Oh!" said the vicar. Plainly this intelligence was not pleasing to him. Doctor Fairbridge was the Rushleigh practitioner, and he was young and good-looking, and unquestionably eligible. "You think that, do you? Should you say that he stands any chance of winning her?" "She seems to like him," Mrs Errol answered. "It would be a very suitable match. He is the right age, and his practice is good. They say he is clever. At the same time, I don't fancy Miss Annersley is the kind of girl who is eager to get married. She will probably be difficult to please." "H'm?" remarked the vicar, and looked a trifle serious. He began to entertain doubts of Miss Annersley. "You wouldn't, I suppose," he hazarded, "suspect her of being a flirt?" "That depends on what you mean exactly. Given the opportunity, every woman is a flirt. I wouldn't accuse her of being unscrupulous. But all girls like attention; it is against human nature to discourage what one derives amusement from." "I wish human nature were different in that respect," the vicar returned. He was quite convinced that John Musgrave had no thought of flirting, and he did not like to believe that Miss Annersley was merely deriving amusement. She had looked, he recalled, on the previous night quite sweetly serious. But a woman might look serious and yet be inwardly amused. If Peggy Annersley was amusing herself at John Musgrave's expense it would be the finish, the vicar realised, of his friend's liking and respect for her sex. John Musgrave was not the type of man to make a heartbreak of it, but assuredly he would not essay a second time. "I should like to know," Mrs Errol said, "why you are so particularly concerned with Miss Annersley's matrimonial affairs? Your interest is most extraordinary." Then it was that the vicar told her of the scene he had accidentally witnessed the previous night. She was not so greatly impressed as he had expected her to be, but a scene described is less effective than the same scene actually beheld. He found that he could not adequately depict the expression on the two faces; he could only explain baldly that John seemed very much in earnest. "John always is," she retorted. "That's what makes him so dull. You don't for one moment imagine, do you, that a pretty girl like Miss Annersley would fall in love with John?"