A great gust of laughter sounded from the open kitchen window away to the left, screened by a trellis over which the lavish trailings of a creeper made a bright green curtain. It was Bennett’s voice. He had just accomplished something or other. “Ullo,” said Harriett. The strange man was holding his lower lip in with his teeth, as if in horror or pain.... They stood in a row on the gravel. “Let me introduce Mr. Grove,” said Harriett, with a shy movement of her head and shoulders, keeping her hands clasped. Her face was all broken up. She could either laugh or cry. But there was something, a sort of light, chiselling it, holding everything back. Miriam bowed. “What’s Bennett doing?” she said hurriedly. “The last time _I_ saw him he was standing on the kitchen table fighting with the gas bracket,” said Gerald. The sallow man drew in his breath sharply and stood aside, staring down the garden. Miriam glanced at him, wondering. He was not criticising Gerald. It was something else. “I say, Mirry, what did you do to old Tremayne this morning?” went on Gerald. “What do you mean?” said Miriam interested. This was the novel going on.... She must read it through even at this strange moment ... this moment was the right setting to read through Gerald that little exciting far-away finished thing of the morning, to know that it had been right. She felt decked. Gerald stood confronting her and spoke low, fingering the anemones in her belt. The others were talking. Harriett in high short laughing sentences, the man gasping and moaning his replies, making jerky movements. He was not considering his words, but looking for the right, appropriate things to say. Miriam rejoiced over him as she smiled encouragingly at Gerald. “Well, my dear, he wanted to know--_who_ you were; and he swears he’s going to be engaged to you before the year is out.” “What abominable cheek,” said Miriam, flushing with delight. Then she had taken the right line. How easy. This was how things happened. “No, my dear, he didn’t mean to be cheeky.” “I call it the most abominable cheek.” “No you don’t”; Gerald was looking at her with fatherly solicitude. “That’s what he said anyhow--and he meant it. Ask Harry.” “Frivolous young man.” “Well, he’s an awful flirt, I warn you; but he’s struck this time--all of a heap ... came and raved about you the minute he’d seen you, and when he heard you were Harry’s sister that’s what he said.” “I’m sure I’m awfully obliged to his majesty.”