Walking in Kensington Gardens to-day whom should I meet but Ben's Uncle Paul, with his latest yacht on his arm; and he seemed almost to welcome the opportunity of sitting down for a while to chat. For we are not the most intimate of acquaintances; not because of any inherent antipathy, but because of an acute observer would probably detect in each of us a slight suspicion of the other—a tincture of jealousy—each of us wishing to be the nearest and dearest among Ben's middle-aged friends. Her capture of a young man we should accept not with joy but with resignation—for it would be according to nature—but we should hate to see her adding another friend of fifty to her retinue.

We began, as we usually do when we meet, by mentioning her. It is a sign that true intimacy is lacking when a third person is called in as an ice-pick. And how often it happens!

"Have you seen Ben lately?" I asked, hoping fervently that the advantage was with me.

"She came in to see me last evening," said Uncle Paul, with all his usual difficulty of utterance, and my heart fell. (But of course relatives don't count. Relatives are in the line of least resistance. The real test is when a stranger is made a friend of.)

"How do you feel about the business?" Uncle Paul asked. "Do you think it is really thriving? Do you think it is too great a strain?"

"I don't think so," I said. "And she does it so well; she's so happy doing it that a little strain wouldn't matter."

"I went into the book shop underneath the other day," said Uncle Paul, "all unbeknown to Ben, to have a look at those young men. I suppose you've seen them?"

I had seen them often, confound them! "Yes," I said, "once or twice."

"And how do they strike you?" Uncle Paul inquired. "Because you know, I suppose——" He stopped for a while. "Well, I wonder what you think of them," he said.

"I am sorry to say," I replied, "that I don't see anything very wrong with either."

He looked at me through his highly magnifying gold-rimmed glasses. Then he laughed.

"I felt a little like that myself," he said. "But we mustn't be dogs in the manger: old men like us."

(Not so old as that, all the same! He must speak for himself.)

"I could wish that the quiet one had more legs," said Uncle Paul. "But I suppose that his disability is all in his favour with such a born manager as Ben. Would he be your choice?"

"I don't know," I said. "I sometimes think I should prefer her to take the jolly one. And I like a man to be complete."

"The jolly one might get on her nerves after a while," said Uncle Paul. "High spirits and facetiousness can ruin a marriage almost as easily as egotism and irony."

"I don't think Harford's humour is as virulent as that," I said. "I saw a lot of him at Bibury. I thought his gaiety rather attractive. He has some brains, too. His principal fault—and I wish I could share it—is that he finds life an adventure and a joke. But he will be cured of such heresies as those all too soon. Nothing so enrages the Powers above as to see anyone down here daring to be like that. And they have all the weapons of chastisement and correction so handy!"

"Well, I shall put my money on the lame one," said Uncle Paul.

"But why should she marry either?" I asked. "She does not strike me as so inevitably a marrying girl."

"Geographical conditions largely," said Uncle Paul. "There they all are, so absolutely on the spot."

"I should have thought they would be jealous," I said.

"I've no doubt they are," said Uncle Paul, who seemed to me to know far too much for a stammering recluse given to Round Pond navigation. "And if one of them is not accepted, or both aren't refused, pretty soon, 'The Booklovers' Rest' will dissolve partnership."

"As bad as that?" I remarked.

"I think so," he said. "It's astonishing what a disturbing element in the lives of two young men one young woman can be."

"Yes," I said, "and it's more astonishing when it's such a sensible girl as Ben, who would not be bothered to make mischief with anyone, but merely wants to go her own way and be busy. But what does Nature care about 'The Becks and Calls'? Nature has only two ideas in her obstinate old head. One is that people should fall in love and become parents, and the other that they should grow old."