"Only you, Muir, would leave out the only thing of the slightest importance that you had to tell me, which I hear the second I leave the house from that round-faced tattooed idiot, Rathbone, at the corner of the street."

"But I tell you it's all right, old chap."

"All right? Don't you see that this sort of thing constantly happening will gradually undermine ...? I like Valentia. It's a great shame."

"Harry certainly isn't worth smashing up a happy home for," Muir answered, "if that's what you're afraid of. But ... when he marries Miss Walmer it'll be all right. Val will forget about him, and settle down with Romer again. I'm deeper than you think, Gillie ... ah, I don't say much, but I can see as far through a brick wall as most people!"

"Just about as far, I should think," said Vaughan contemptuously.

"What do you propose to do about it?"

"It's likely I'd tell you." Gillie sat down to his desk and rang a bell.

"I suppose I've got to go now, eh?"

"Almost time, I should think."

"Ha, ha, ha! Capital! Well, so long! Be good."

Muir went away as heartily as he had arrived.

The bell was answered by the entrance of the housekeeper, Mrs. Mills.

She was a muddle-headed, elderly woman in black silk, whom Vaughan kept because her extraordinary tactlessness amused him. She invariably managed to do and say the wrong thing at the right time. To-day it was a hot morning in July. She came in holding in her hand a little card covered with frost and robins.

"Mr. Vaughan, sir, I appened to be going through my things, and I come across this, sir. I thought pre-aps you'd like it. It is pretty."

She insisted on his taking it.

"Charming, Mrs. Mills, but I don't quite see----"

"Oh, look at the words, sir! They're what I call so appropriate! Do read them."

He read the beautiful words--

_Wishing you a blithe and gladsome Yule._

"What on earth----?"

"Well, sir, I only thought they was pretty, and pre-aps you'd like to keep it, sir, or send it to one of your young ladies; but I'll take it away if you don't like it." She put it back in her pocket.

"Frankly, I don't. What a genius you have for the wrong thing! Are you going to give me plum pudding and turkey on Midsummer Day?"

"I shouldn't dream of such a thing, sir."

Gillie had scribbled a letter.

"Go and ring up a messenger boy, will you?"

"May I send Johnson, sir? I don't old with telephones. They buzz at you or makes you jump. And the young person keeps on saying ave you got them? before you've ad time to breathe, in a manner of speaking."

She took the note. Vaughan sat down on a sofa to wait for the answer, glanced at the clock, and said, "Confound Muir! He's made me waste another morning."

When the answer came, Gillie went out and strolled towards Mount Street.

He found Valentia at home, evidently flattered and fluttered at seeing him.

"How sweet of you to come!" she said.

"You'll stay to lunch, of course?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Oh! lunching with a leading lady, I suppose?"

"No."

"With whom?"

"With Romeike and Curtice."

"Not really? What fun! What are they like?"

"Oh, Romeike is all right. I don't care so much about Curtice."

She gave him a cigarette.

"I never in my life," said Vaughan, "before to-day, attempted to interfere in anybody else's affairs."

She stared at him.

"But in this case it--may I really smoke?--does seem such a pity! Of course you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Do I?"

"You see, I feel so certain that if you were, let's say--married to _Harry_ and met Romer after, you'd be so wildly in love with Romer."

"So I was," she said in a low voice. "Tremendously! I thought he was a strong silent man with a great deal in him.... Oh! I've told you."

"Yes, but so he is. It's commonplace of you, really, Val, not to see it."

"I'm awfully sorry.... I do love Romer, and I think I appreciate him.

But somehow it's a little dull. It's not exciting as I thought it would be."

"Well! if you _must_ have fun, and amus.e.m.e.nt, and make a hero of somebody, why just Harry? Why not a superior man? Me, for instance?"

He was laughing.

"I've been told that an adoration for you would be hopeless, utterly hopeless." She smiled. "And we're friends. I can't imagine----"