"You needn't. No woman need. He's a man who doesn't know his own mind and never will. I doubt very much whether he has a mind to know. If he ever marries he will marry a _wife_, not any particular woman; a smart worldly woman for his profession, or a thoroughly healthy female who'll keep a home in the country for him and have children and pour out his tea and grow things in the garden, while he flirts with patients in town. He's most awfully susceptible." "I expect we shan't live in London." "Well that'll be better for you won't it?" "How do you mean de-er?" "Well. I ought to tell you Dr. Densley told me you ought to go abroad." "There's no need for me to go abroad dear, I shall be all right if I can look _after_ myself and get into the air." "I expect you will. Everything's happened just right hasn't it?" "It's all been in the hands of an 'igher power, dear." Miriam found herself chafing again. It had all rushed on, in a few minutes. It was out of her hands completely now. She did not want to know Mr. and Mrs. Taunton. There was nothing to hold her any longer. She had seen Miss Dear in the new part. To watch the working out of it, to hear about the parish, sudden details about people she did not know--intolerable. CHAPTER XXXII 1 The short figure looked taller in the cassock, funny and hounded, like all curates; pounding about and arranging a place for her and trying to collect his thoughts while he repeated how good it was of her to have come. He sat down at last to the poached eggs and tea laid on one end of the small book-crowded table. "I have a service at four-thirty" he said busily eating and glaring in front of him with unseeing eyes, a little like Mr. Grove only less desperate because his dark head was round and his eyes were blue--"so you must excuse my meal. I have a volume of _Plato_ here." "Oh yes" said Miriam doubtfully. "Are you familiar with Plato?" She pondered intensely and rushed in just in time to prevent his speaking again. "I _should_ like him I know--I've come across extracts in other books." "He is a great man; my favourite companion. I spend most of my leisure up here with Plato." "What a delightful life" said Miriam enviously, looking about the small crowded room. "As much time as I can spare from my work at the Institute and the Mission chapel; they fill my _active_ hours."