When Mrs Osborne and Marie came down to dinner they seemed to be excellent friends. Mrs Osborne did and said everything she could think of to put Marie at ease and make her feel at home. The mother had one of those sedate, orderly intellects which cannot be comfortable in the presence of any breach in the ordinary rules of conventional life. She would not have been at all content if she had an assurance George would never marry. George's father and grandfather had married, and why should not George? It was true there had been bachelors on both sides of the family; but she did not approve of bachelors. At first she had not liked the thought of George marrying a person whom he had met casually at an hotel in London. She could not endure hotels herself, and put up at them as seldom as possible. But her Uncle Frederick had married an Austrian lady whom he first met at an hotel in the Alps somewhere, and the marriage had turned out excellently. Besides, much as she had disliked the notion of her son marrying an alien, the girl had not been two minutes in the room before she had conceived a liking for her. Of course she was beautiful, and that was a great deal. Then her hands and ears were good, and she walked well enough to wear a coronet. No girl in or about Stratford was so beautiful as Marie. It was not in women the great difference existed, but in men. The vast majority of girls made good wives; and if there is unhappiness in many households, the fault in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is on the man's side. But there could be no doubt of this simple, straightforward girl making a good wife. Though she had not yet known her a day, she felt as much reliance on her as on one of her own daughters. And then here was this lover of Kate's. What could she think of him? Appearances were certainly against him. He was about as plain-looking a man as she had ever seen. But he had no presumption. Indeed, he could not presume much on his good looks! But he was candid. Manly and handsome or fine men did not always make the best husbands; and George liked him; and when a girl had a careful, sensible brother like George there was no one better qualified to decide the merits of a sister's lover than such a brother. He would settle in the neighbourhood, and that was no small consideration. If George and Kate were comfortably settled close to Stratford they would be quite a large family. It was rather hard to think of parting from two children at once; but in the usual order they would marry some day; and she could not dream of standing in the way of their happiness or prosperity; and the next best thing to their staying at home would be that they should live near the parent house. Marie had never known such peaceful happiness before. It had been a great joy to her when she first admitted to herself she loved George Osborne. From that moment, until the cloud came over him, she had lived in a world of delightful dreams, of wonderful and beautiful sensations. His advent had revealed to her the sanctuary of her own heart. She had known she was physically beautiful--men and women had told her so. But she had never known the loveliness of her nature until then. She had appreciated her physical beauty, but had never boasted of it to herself. But when she found out she loved George, and that because of that love she was prepared to make any sacrifice for him, she delighted in telling herself what an unselfish heart she had. She said, 'I would do anything George asked me. I would go anywhere he asked me. I am not selfish or vain. How I loathe girls who make slaves of men; who make their lovers fetch and carry for them, as though anyone could not fetch and carry while it was possible to love only one! 'Why should foolish girls think it a privilege to tyrannise over those who love them? I could never think of tyrannising over George. Fancy my tyrannising over George! Fancy my trying to make him do anything that would lower his dignity in the eyes of other men! I! I would die first. I am not so foolish or so wicked as to play with the man I love; and I am glad to think my George has not fallen in love with a woman whose pretty face and figure are all she has worth his consideration. If I were plain I should be more worthy of George's admiration than if I were the greatest beauty in England and had a less unselfish heart.' Those hours in London had been for Marie full of large and liberal thoughts. That moment in the train, when she saw the cloud drift away, had been one of intense relief, followed by strong, vague thankfulness. But at this dinner the feeling was one of deep, unanalysed, unthinking pleasure. Here was George looking his own kind, quiet, contented self again. Now and then he said a word to her; now and then she found his constant, frank eyes fixed upon her with their old expression of chivalric admiration and loyal devotion. Here was his mother, gracious and affectionate, and going out of her way to make Marie see that the future wife of George was approved of and highly welcomed. Here was gentle Kate, demurely happy, and looking now and then with a warning glance at Nevill when he burst forth with his usual audacity. All went well and pleasantly. At the beginning Nevill adopted a wise precaution--he said nothing of himself. He kept chiefly to the Red Man. He once knew a red man named Tomahawk Effendi. Tomahawk Effendi was a man over six feet in height, and as red as a new brick house. 'You remember Tomahawk Effendi, Osborne?' 'It was before I went to London,' said George. Kate glanced at Nevill. 'I did not know there were any Red Indians in London just now,' said Mrs Osborne. 'Only a few in the outskirts. They have been almost all shot down by this time.' 'My goodness, Mr Nevill, what do you mean? I have seen nothing about the massacre of Indians in London.' 'It was not what you might consider a massacre--' 'But you said shot.' 'I meant killed by London gin. "Pay the shot" means pay the score; and pay the score means pay for the drink. They are, in ethics, convertible terms, like meum and tuum.' 'And are there really Red Indians in London?' 'In the suburbs only. There is a large tribe of them in Lordship Lane at present. Owing to the intense susceptibility of the United States Embassy, these aboriginal Red Indians have been compelled by the Government to pass themselves off as gipsies; but they are no more gipsies than I am a Caucasian. You remember, Osborne, the other day, on the occasion of that demonstration in Hyde Park in favour of abolishing the laws now regulating fishing on the Newfoundland banks? You remember one of those so-called gipsies spoke. He wound up by saying he had a home on the other side of the water as well as on this, "And by that right we will defend it?" cried the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk and raising the war-cry of his nation. You remember it surely, Osborne? It created quite a sensation at the time. You recollect it?' 'I have some recollection of the words.' 'It was a splendid speech. I am sure Miss Alice Osborne would have been delighted very much with it.' 'But,' said Alice, putting down her dessert-fork, 'you were going to tell us something about a man with a horrible name. Is this the man with the horrible name, or is this the horrible man without the name?' 'This is the horrible man without the name.' 'And who was the man with the name?' 'You mean Clooney O'Keefe, the famous bush-ranger; the man I shot--' 'The man you shot, Mr Nevill!' 'The man I shot with, Mrs Osborne. I was about to say with. I paused merely to recall his features. He wore a goatee beard and a plug-hat. But the most extraordinary thing about Clooney O'Keefe, the outlawed murderer and robber--' 'With whom you shot, Mr Nevill?' cried Mrs Osborne. 'Accidentally, of course, Mrs Osborne, as one might be shooting at Wimbledon or Inverness-shire in company with the greatest ruffian unhung. The curious thing about Clooney O'Keefe was that, although he was half his time out in the bush, he always wore a blue tight-fitting frock-coat, a flower in his button-hole, and a pair of six-chambered revolvers in his back coat-pockets. He said no gentleman could think of wearing a belt. He had a melancholy end. It created a sensation in the colony.' 'How did he die?' asked Mrs Osborne, with a faint smile. 'One day, while he was resting after robbing a stoutish man, he put his gun on the ground and walked a little way from it, to see if the man whom he had robbed and bound was satisfied, or preferred to be shot rather than run the risk of not being found by anyone before he died of starvation. The man elected to live. Poor Clooney turned round to go back for his rifle, when he saw, to his horror, that a full-grown kangaroo had taken up the loaded weapon, and was pointing it at him, poor Clooney. The creature had, no doubt, seen Clooney cover the traveller with the rifle. The piece might go off at any moment. Clooney drew out one of his revolvers and fired. The bullet struck the trigger of the gun; it went off, and Clooney fell. They put up a monument to the kangaroo, and were very near lynching the traveller when they found him, for being, in a manner, the cause of Clooney's death. These colonial people are a queer lot.' Mrs Osborne rose, and, as he held the door for her, she said, with a smile in passing, 'I am afraid Mr Nevill has been entertaining us with nothing better than travellers' tales.' 'I hope with nothing worse,' he said, bowing low. When the door had been closed he went over to George, and said, 'I am delighted to see you back in your old form again, Osborne. You look as though the heart bowed down with weight of woe had gone in for dumb-bells and come straight in the back again. I hope all is now right between you and Marie?' 'I think so. I have reason to think so.' 'I am delighted. What an awful fool you were to knock your mind into a cocked hat over questions you must take as settled by other men! Did I make a fool of myself--I mean an extra fool of myself--at dinner?' 'No; on the contrary, you got on very well.' 'You don't think I annoyed or displeased your mother?' 'Not in the least. At first she could not make you out. Then she decided you were treating Alice as a very young girl, and inventing stories for her amusement.' 'Oh, was that it?' said Nevill. 'I'm delighted. Because, you know, Osborne, it would never do for your mother to know the truth about me until after Kate and I are married.' 'Don't talk nonsense, Nevill.' 'Perhaps you think I am now inventing travellers' tales to please a child. Were you very little better than a child when you were peddling over your doubts and fears? Why didn't you do as I did? Why didn't you admit that better men and better informed men believed what you hesitated to adopt--men, too, who had given the attention of a lifetime to the subject? Who's that singing? It isn't Kate; her voice is a soprano. It can't be your younger sister; she's very fair, and fair women never have contralto voices. What a magnificent voice it is! What song is that?' 'It is Marie,' said George,' and she is singing the "Miserere nobis."' 'It is very fine. To think you were a doubter a day or two ago!' 'I am one still.'