Fury was in her heart at Tony's disobedience, and behind it all a dull ache that Miles should have heard, and doubtless misunderstood, Walter Brooke's last remark.

Tony was talking eagerly as he followed, but she was too upset to listen till suddenly she heard Miles say in a tone of the deepest satisfaction, "Good old William."

This was too much.

She stopped and called over her shoulder: "He isn't good at all; he's a thoroughly tiresome, disobedient, badly-trained dog."

They came up with her at that, and William rolled over on his back, for he knew those tones portended further punishment.

"He's an a.s.s in lots of ways," Miles allowed, "but he is an excellent judge of character."

And as if in proof of this William righted himself and came cringing to Meg to try and lick the hand that a few minutes ago had thumped him so vigorously.

Meg looked up at Miles and he looked down at her, and his gaze was pained, kind and grave. _His_ eyes were large and well-opened and set wide apart in his broad face. Honest, trustworthy eyes they were.

Very gently he took the little pram from her, for he saw that her hands were trembling: "You've had a fright," he said. "I know what it is. I had a favourite dog run over once. It's horrible, it takes months to get over it. I can't think why dogs are so stupid about motors ... must have been a near shave that ... very decent of Brooke--he's taken pounds off his car with that wrench."

While Miles talked he didn't look at Meg.

"I say, little Fay," he suddenly suggested, "wouldn't you like to walk a bit?" and he lifted her out. "There, that's better. Now, Miss Morton, you sit down a minute; you've had a shake, you know. I'll go on with the kiddies."

Meg was feeling a horrible, humiliating desire to cry. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her knees refused to bear her. Thankfully she sat down on the foot-board of Fay's little pram. The tall figure between the two little ones suddenly grew blurred and dim. Furtively she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. They were not a stone's throw from the lodge at Wren's End.

How absurd to be sitting there!

And yet she didn't feel inclined to move just yet.

"'Ere, my dear, you take a sip o' water; the gentleman's told me all about it. Them sort o' shocks fair turns one over."

And kind Mrs. Earley was beside her, holding out a thick tumbler. Meg drank the deliciously cold water and arose refreshed.

And somehow the homely comfort of Mrs. Earley's presence made her realise wherein lay the essential difference between these two men.

"He still treats me like a princess," she thought, "even though he thinks ... Oh, what _can_ he think?" and Meg gave a little sob.

"There, there!" said Mrs. Earley, "don't you take on no more, Miss. The dear dog bain't 'urted not a 'air of him. 'E c.u.m frolicking in that friendly--I sometimes wonders if there do be anyone as William 'ud ever bite. 'E ain't much of a watchdog, I fear."

"He nearly bit someone this afternoon," Meg said.

"Well, I'm not sorry to yer it. It don't do for man nor beast to be too trustful--not in this world it don't."

At the drive gate Miles was standing.

Mrs. Earley took the pram with her for Earley to clean, and Meg and Miles walked on together.

"I'm sorry you've had this upset," he said. "I've talked to William like a father."

"It wasn't only William," Meg murmured.

They were close to the house, and she stopped.

"Good night, Captain Middleton. I must go and put my children to bed; we're late."

"I don't want to seem interfering, Miss Morton, but don't you let anyone bully you into picking up an acquaintance you'd rather drop."

"I suppose," said Meg, "one always has to pay for the things one has done."

"Well, yes, sooner or later; but it's silly to pay Jew prices."

"Ah," said Meg, "you've never been poor enough to go to the Jews, so you can't tell."

Miles walked slowly back to Amber Guiting that warm May evening. He had a good deal to think over, for he had come to a momentous decision. When he thought of Meg as he had just seen her--small and tremulous and tearful--he clenched his big hands and made a sound in his throat not unlike William's growl. When he pictured her angry onslaught upon William, he laughed. But the outcome of his reflections was this--that whether in the past she had really done anything that put her in Walter Brooke's power, or whether he was right to trust to that intangible quality in her that seemed to give the direct lie to the worst of Mrs.

Trent's story, Meg appeared to him to stand in need of some hefty chap as a buffer between her and the hard world, and he was very desirous of being that same for Meg.

His grandfather, "Mutton-Pie Middleton," had married one of his own waitresses for no other reason than that he found she was "the la.s.s for him"--and he might, so the Doncaster folk thought, have looked a good deal higher for a wife, for he was a "warm" man at the time. Miles strongly resembled his grandfather. He was somewhat ruefully aware that in appearance there was but little of the Keills about him. He could just remember the colossal old man who must have weighed over twenty stone in his old age, and Miles, hitherto, had refused to buy a motor for his own use because he knew that if he was to keep his figure he must walk, and walk a lot.

Like his grandfather, he was now perfectly sure of himself; Meg "was the la.s.s for him"; but he was by no means equally sure of her. By some infallible delicacy of instinct--and this he certainly did not get from the Middletons--he knew that what the world would regard as a magnificent match for Meg, might be the very circ.u.mstance that would destroy his chance with her. The Middletons were all keenly alive to the purchasing powers of money, and saw to it that they got their money's worth.

All the same, a man's a man, whether he be rich or poor, and Miles still remembered the way Meg had smiled upon him the first time they ever met.

Surely she could never have smiled at him like that unless she had rather liked him.

It was the pathos of Meg herself--not the fact that she had to work--that appealed to Miles. That she should cheerfully earn her own living instead of grousing in idleness in a meagre home seemed to him merely a matter of common sense. He knew that if he had to do it he could earn his, and the one thing he could neither tolerate nor understand about a good many of his Keills relations was their preference for any form of a.s.sistance to honest work. He helped them generously enough, but in his heart of hearts he despised them, though he did not confess this even to himself.

As he drew near the Manor House he saw Lady Mary walking up and down outside, evidently waiting for him.

"Where have you been, Miles?" she asked, impatiently. "Pen has been here, and wanted specially to see you, but she couldn't stay any longer, as it's such a long run back. She motored over from Malmesbury."

"What did she want?" Miles asked. "She's always in a stew about something. One of her Pekinese got pip, or what?"

Lady Mary took his arm and turned to walk along the terrace. "I think,"

she said, and stopped. "Where _were_ you, Miles?"

"I strolled down the village to get some tobacco, and then I saw a chap who'd got his motor stuck, and helped him, and then ..." Here Miles looked down at his aunt, who looked up at him apprehensively. "I caught up with Miss Morton and the children, and walked back to Wren's End with them. There, Aunt Mary, that's a categorical history of my time since tea."

Lady Mary pressed his arm. "Miles, dear, do you think it's quite wise to be seen about so much with little Miss Morton ... wise for her I mean?"

"I hope I'm not the sort of chap it's bad to be seen about with...."

"Of course not, dear Miles, but, you see, her position...."

"What's the matter with her position?"

"Of course I know it's most creditable of her and all that ... but ...

when a girl has to go out as a sort of nursery governess, it is different, isn't it, dear? I mean...."

"Yes, Aunt Mary, I'm awfully interested--different from what?"