Spoilt! Clare spoilt! Peter smiled darkly. Alice Galleon--delightful woman though she was, of course couldn't endure that another woman should receive such praise--Jealousy! Ah!...

And the aged and weighty author of "Reuben Hallard," to whom the world was naturally an open book, and life known to its foundations, nodded to himself. How people, intelligent enough in other ways, could be so short-sighted!

Afterwards, when they were alone, Bobby took him in hand--

"You're in love with Clare Rossiter, Peter," he said.

"Yes, I am," Peter answered defiantly.

"But you've known her so short a time!"

"What's that to do with it?"

"Oh, nothing, of course. But do you think you're the sort of people likely to get on?"

"Really, Bobby, I don't--"

"I know--none of my business--quite true. But you see I've known Clare pretty well all my life and you're the best friend I've got, so you might allow me to take an interest."

"Well, say what you like."

"Nothing to say except that Clare isn't altogether an easy problem.

You're like all the other fellows I know--think because Clare's got red hair and laughs easily she's a goddess--she isn't, not a bit! She's got magnificent qualities and one day perhaps, when she's had a thoroughly bad time, she'll show one the kind of things she's made of. But she's an only child, she's been spoilt all her life and the moment she begins to be unhappy she's impossible."

"She shan't ever be unhappy if I can help it!" muttered Peter fiercely.

Bobby laughed. "You'll do your best of course, but are you the sort of man for her? She wants some one who'll give her every kind of comfort, moral, physical and intellectual. She wants somebody who'll accept her enthusiasms as genuine intelligence. You'll find her out intellectually in a week. Then she wants some one who'll give her his whole attention.

You think now that you will but you won't--you can't--you're not made that way. By temperament and trade you're an artist. She thinks, at the moment, that an artist would suit her very well; but, in reality, my boy, he's the very last sort of person she ought to marry."

Peter caught at Bobby's words. "Do you really think she cares about me?"

"She's interested. Clare spends her days in successive enthusiasms.

She's always being enthusiastic--dreadful disillusions in between the heights. Mind you, there's another side of Clare--a splendid side, but it wants very careful management and I don't know, Peter, that you're exactly the sort of person--"

"Thanks very much," said Peter grimly.

"No, but you're not--you don't, in the least, see her as she is, and she doesn't see you as you are--hence these misguided attempts on my part to show you one another."

But Peter had not been listening.

"Do you really think," he muttered, "that she cares about me?"

Bobby looked at him, laughed and shrugged his shoulders in despair.

"Ah! I see--it's no use," he said, "poor dear Peter--well, I wish you luck!"

And that was the end as far as Alice and Bobby were concerned. They never alluded to it again and indeed now seemed to favour meetings between Clare and Peter.

And now, through these wonderful Spring weeks, these two were continually together. The Galleons had, at first, been inclined to consider Clare's obvious preference for Peter as the simplest desire to be part of a general rather heady enthusiasm. "Clare loves little movements...." And Peter, throughout this Spring was a little movement.

The weeks went on, and Clare was not herself--silent, absorbed, almost morose. One day she asked Alice Galleon a number of questions about Peter, and, after that, resolutely avoided speaking of him. "Of course,"

Alice said to Bobby--"Dr. Rossiter will let her marry any one she likes.

She'll have plenty of money and Peter's going to have a great career.

After all it may be the best thing."

Bobby shook his head. "They're both egoists," he said. "Peter because he's never had anything he wanted and Clare because she's always had everything ... it won't do."

But, after all, when May gave place to burning June, Bobby and Alice were inevitably drawn into that romance. They yielded to an atmosphere that both, by temperament, were too sentimental to resist.

Nearer and nearer was coming that intoxicating moment of Peter's final plunge, and Clare--beautiful, these weeks, with all the excitement of the wonderful episode--saw him as a young god who had leapt upon a submissive London and conquered it.

Mrs. Rossiter and Mrs. Galleon played waiting chorus. Mrs. Launce from her little house in Westminster, was, as usual, glowing with a piece of other people's happiness. Bobby and Alice had surrendered to the atmosphere. All were, of course, silent--until the word is spoken no movement must be made--the little god is so easily alarmed.

At last towards the close of this hot June, Mrs. Launce proposed to Clare a week-end at her Sussex cottage by the sea. She also told Peter that she could put him up if he chose to come down at the same time.

What could be more delightful in this weather?

"Dear Clare, only the tiniest cottage as you know--no one else unless Peter Westcott happens to come down--I suggested it, and you can see the sea from your window and there's a common and a donkey, and you can roll in the sand--" Mrs. Launce, when she was very happy betrayed her French descent by the delightful way that she rolled her r's.

"Not a soul anywhere near--we can bathe all day."

Clare would love to come so strangely enough would Peter--"The 5.30 train then--Saturday...." Dear Mrs. Launce in her bonnet and blue silk!

Clare had never thought her so entirely delightful!

Peter, of course, plainly understood the things that dear Mrs. Launce intended. His confidence in her had been, in no way, misplaced--she loved a wedding and was the only person in the world who could bring to its making so fine a compound of sentiment and common sense. She frankly loved it all and though, at the moment, occupied with the work of at least a dozen women, and with a family that needed her most earnest care, she hastened to assist the Idyll.

Peter's own feelings were curiously confused. He was going to propose to Clare; and now he seemed to face, suddenly, the change that this must mean to him. Those earlier months, when it had been pursuit with no certainty of capture had only shown him one thing desirable--Clare. But now that he was face to face with it he was frightened--what did he know of women?...

On the morning they were to go down, he sat in his room, this terrible question confronting him. No, he knew nothing about women! He had left his heroine very much alone in "Reuben Hallard" and those occasions when he had been obliged to bring her on the stage had not been too successful. He knew nothing about women!

There would be things--a great many--as a married man, he would have to change. Sometimes he was moody for days together and wanted to see no one. Sometimes he was so completely absorbed by his work that the real people around him were shadows and wraiths. These moods must vanish.

Clare must always find him ready and cheerful and happy.

A dreadful sense of inadequacy weighed upon Peter. And then at the concrete fact of her actual presence, at the thought of her standing there, waiting for him, wanting him, his doubts left him and he was wildly, madly happy.

And yet, before he left the room, his glance fell on his writing-table.

White against its shining surface lay a paper and on the top sheet, written: "The Stone House"; a Novel; Chapter II. Months ago--he had not touched it all these last weeks, and, at this moment he felt he would never write anything again. He turned away with a little movement of irritation....

That morning he went formally to Dr. Rossiter. The little man received him, smiling.

"I want to marry your daughter, sir," said Peter.

"You're very young," said the Doctor.

"Twenty-six," said Peter.

"Well, if she'll have you I won't stand in your way--"

Peter took the 5.30 train....