“Do you know, Butterfield,” Bassishaw said, “I don’t know how you get along—that is—get along, you know—as you do.”

The remark didn’t seem particularly illuminating, but he had been silent for ten minutes, and this appeared to be the result of his cogitation.

“No?” I said encouragingly.

“Well, you know what I mean,” he replied. “I mean how you manage—in the way you do, you know; never to—you’ve never—hang it, Butterfield, why don’t you get married?”

“Oh!” I answered, “I see. Of course. I didn’t quite catch the idea at first. Of course. Why don’t I get married.”

“Yes,” he replied, much relieved. “You—you should, you know. It’s the finest thing in the world—being engaged, that is. You’ve no idea, really, Butterfield.”

He seemed quite eager about it. I put my feet comfortably on the fender, and waited for him to expand. He kept his eyes on the fire.

“You know,” he went on slowly, “you’ll feel awfully lonely and all that—soon, that is—when Caroline goes, I mean.”

Matchmaking is never a man’s line; he draws back at the very intimate point he should press home. Arthur did his best. Mrs. Loring had probably been talking to him.

“I shall miss her very much,” I replied, “very much indeed; but to whom do you propose to marry me?”

He seemed rather abashed, and a trifle impatient.

“Don’t be an ass,” he said.

I could not be certain, owing to the firelight, that he blushed, but I chanced it. I didn’t object to these palpable attempts to marry me to Millicent Dixon; but it was disparaging to my intelligence that I should be supposed not to notice them. Anyway, the male element was a new feature in the alliance.

“And do you think that she and I would be a well-matched pair?” I asked.

He professed a hypocritical ignorance as to whom I meant. I laughed.

“Mrs. Loring,” I answered, “can give you points, Arthur. You would apparently marry me on general principles. She particularises.”

We were waiting for Caroline and Millicent. Millicent and Bassishaw were dining with us that evening, and Bassishaw had lately, I knew, been a good deal perturbed on my account. More than once he had timidly suggested that a woman’s hand in a place made all the difference, you know, and I had caught him glancing round my rooms with something of a disparaging valuation of their contents when he should take Caroline away. His friendly concern, in itself, was deserving of my gratitude—but with this qualification, that I don’t believe he was above suspecting that I should take to drink in the imminent solitude of my bereft apartments.

I was extracting from him the fervent declaration that I couldn’t imagine how splendid It—being engaged—made you feel, and that to know that there was One upon whom et-cetera et-cetera For Ever, when Millicent and Caroline entered. We rose to greet them.

“How do you do, Millicent?” I said. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Heaven!” she replied, “let me come near the fire. I’m as cold as a seminary breakfast. How do you do, Arthur? What a blessed blaze! Don’t go away, Arthur.”

Bassishaw had gone over to the table, where Caroline was making the last unnecessary arrangements, and was having his flower pinned on.

“Oh! his circulation’s all right,” I remarked. “We were once like that,” and Millicent, looking over her shoulder, laughed at me, and said:

“The dear infants!”

Dinner was served, and we took our places. I faced Caroline, while Millicent, who was still chilly, and didn’t mind the fire at her back, looked over the flowers at Bassishaw; an arrangement as can be diagrammatically proved, offering facilities for between-deck pressing of feet on a diagonal plan, and which appeared to suit my young sister admirably. I gave her an amused glance, which Millicent intercepted, and Carrie tried, unsuccessfully, to look as if she hadn’t done it.

“Never mind him, Carrie,” Millicent said reassuringly. “He’s an envious old man, who’s wasted his youth, and he’s getting cynical. His failing years won’t permit him to do such things himself, and his conscience begins to hurt him.”

This was the woman without whom, in Bassishaw’s opinion, my abode fell short of completeness.

“My failing years, Miss Dixon,” I returned, “bring with them a certain charity; nevertheless, allow me to point out your reason for condoning such practices.”

“Which is——?” she queried.

“That you are quite capable of doing the same thing yourself.”

She laughed, and Bassishaw looked puzzled.

“Oh, I’m not tottering to my fall yet,” she retorted. “I have all sorts of little surprises in my blood.”

“You forbid reply, Miss Dixon,” I answered. “You take refuge in a position where man can only maintain a respectful and incredulous silence. A woman’s years——”

“——are——?” she challenged.

“——and an income-tax return——”

“I am beneath your roof, Mr. Butterfield,” she replied, with the dignity of St. James’s comedy.

Caroline evidently disapproved strongly. She caught my eye.

“I don’t think you’re a bit nice this evening, Rollo,” she said. “If I were Millicent”—she straightened her back—“I wouldn’t dine with you. Don’t take any notice of him, Millie dear.”

“Perhaps,” I replied, “the disparity in years is too great. Think so, Bassishaw?”

I looked round the flowers at him. He seemed rather embarrassed, and said nothing. I filled Millicent’s glass, and turned to her.

“What do you think Bassishaw was saying to me just before you came in?”

I received a kick. Bassishaw, behind the flowers, was very red indeed.

“Heaven forbid that I should guess!” Millicent replied. “Men are frail creatures.”

“He was speaking,” I continued, “of women as a domestic institution. No home, he said, was complete without one. Considered decoratively, she gave an air of brightness——”

Bassishaw must have been as busy in his pedipulations as an organist, for Caroline peremptorily held out her glass to be replenished. I continued:

“As a companion, he said, much could be forgiven her. And she had admirable managing gifts.”

Millicent bowed across the flowers.

“The sex thanks you, Arthur,” she said. “It is quite the proper point of view for a young man. As for this belated bachelor,”—myself—“he never did, nor ever will, think rightly on the subject.”

Bassishaw looked at me reproachfully.

“I didn’t mean—what you think I meant,” he said uncomfortably.

“Forgive me. You meant much more than I say I think you meant.”

“I meant—I meant——” he replied; and then, apologetically, “well, you are getting on, you know, and you’ve missed so much, really, Rollo. If you like being alone——A man who’s never—you don’t mind my saying it?—well, he doesn’t know, that’s all.”

Bassishaw subsided rather incoherently, but applied himself to his plate with conviction. I looked at Millicent, who glanced sidelong fun under her lids.

“What you say is perfectly convincing as a proposition, Arthur,” she remarked. “The man who’s Never—never does know; but the application is another matter. From report, there were hopes for Rollo Butterfield that he has failed to justify. He flirted notoriously.”

“Thank you, gracious lady,” I replied complacently, leaning back at my ease. “That is the name the world gives it.”

“Your conduct with Dolly Hemingway was shameless.”

“Marriage would certainly have been an illogical conclusion,” I admitted.

“And Violet Mellish told me herself——”

“Dear little Vi,” I approved. “Her conversation never did lack the relish of revelation. You must not suppose, Arthur, that I have not had the normal past that my years would guarantee. You appear to think so.”

Bassishaw didn’t seem to see it at all. He fumbled with his fork.

“I expect you’ve had your fancies, of course,” he replied. “But I don’t mean just fancies—that’s only flirting.”

The man who cannot flirt never sees that the power to do so is a gift of the gods. Arthur held by negative constancy.

“Flirtation,” I replied, “is not the simple affair you think, Arthur. It is not necessarily a matter of twilights and conservatories, and does not even always demand privacy. For a flirtation with zest there is nothing like having an audience. Is that not so, Millicent?”

“Spare me the revelation of my ignorance,” Millicent returned, moving her chair an inch or two from the now importunate fire, and looking over her shoulder. “It is possible.”

“The only requisites are a woman, a secret, and as many spectators as have not the use of their eyes,” I continued; “those granted, you may riot in innuendo, and your reputation go scatheless. It is the very button on the cap.”

Bassishaw could think of nothing more original to say than that it was playing with edged tools. Carrie was directing the removal of plates; I devoted my attention to Millicent.

“I had one very serious fancy, though, Millicent,” I remarked. “Shall I tell you?”

“I trust it is not unfit for the children,” she replied, looking this time beneath the flowers at Bassishaw. “The knowledge of good and evil from your point of view might not be of advantage to them.”

Caroline looked round curiously.

“Oh, Rollo, what was that?” she said. “You never told me.”

“No?” I inquired incredulously. “And you my sister, too! Ah, well, it was this. Summer mornings, at seven, I used to go across the fields with a bathing-towel; on my return I was generally met by—I never mentioned her name.”

“It would be indiscreet,” said Millicent.

“Discretion,” I answered, “is the better part of flirtation. They were lovely mornings, and there was a stile—a rather high stile—a distinct opportunity.”

I looked carefully away from Millicent, and turned to Bassishaw.

“Yes?” he said appreciatively. “And what happened?”

“I fancy,” I continued, “that she always met me on my side of the stile, so that we always had to get over it.”

Bassishaw seemed to approve the strategy.

“Nice girl?” he asked.

“She combined,” I replied, “the harmlessness of the dove with the wisdom of the serpent, for she used to feel tired when we got there, and rest. There was just room for two.”

Caroline was interested.

“And when was this, Rollo?” she asked.

“My dear Carrie,” I returned, “you had just begun German; you were at school. Well, this woman of mine would pull a flower to pieces, or light a cigarette for me, or some such foolishness. She knew the exact distance at which her hair would touch my face if it were a little tumbled. And so on.”

Millicent made the criticism that the least she could have done under the circumstances was to have sprained her ankle.

“And who was it?” Carrie asked eagerly.

The woman who presumed to condemn my carrying-on with Dolly Hemingway and Violet Mellish sat smiling in frank innocence. She, whose ignorance of such matters was to be scrupulously respected, sat with unconsciousness on her brow, and gave graceful attention to my story. She, who had called me a belated bachelor, who had spoken of my failing years and my perspective of hesitating singleness, and, above all, whose memory needed no hint as to what I was going to say, dissembled without a quiver.

“Who was it?” Caroline repeated.

“The name is the least essential part of the affair,” I replied. “We are concerned with the stile.”

“Yes, the stile,” Millicent said. “What happened?”

“Were she to ask me herself, I should only whisper,” I returned.

She leaned back and laughed outright. “You are too considerate on her account to make the story very interesting,” she remarked. “I swear I could finish it better myself. One day you tried to kiss her.”

Millicent had chosen the hazardous line of safety. She had told the truth.

I stole a glance at her under cover of the flowers.

“I tried not to,” I replied.

“And she was angry.”

“She did her best to be angry.”

“She was.”

“Till the next morning,” I answered.

“And then you begged her pardon?”

“I did nothing of the kind. I was not so young as all that.”

“But, at least, you were sorry?” Millicent suggested.

“Not from that day to this,” I replied. “It was too perfect.”

Millicent moved her chair a little further, and, as she did so—it might have been done purposely—you never can tell with Millicent—her foot touched mine gently; and as it remained there a moment, I felt more like Bassishaw than I would have cared to admit. She has since told me, I don’t mind saying, that I have good eyes; be that as it may, the mischief in her own was for a second tempered to an expression that—was nobody’s business but mine. I felt tempted to forswear my theory, and to regret the presence of an audience.

She rose gaily.

“This is all very well,” she said, “but it is a bad thing to have the fire at your back. Be good enough to put the screen up, Arthur.”

Arthur did so.

“But the story,” Caroline persisted impatiently—she wanted to get to the reconciliation with tears. “How does the story go on?”

“It went on,” I replied, “in much the same way. It is not quite finished yet.”

She looked a virtuous reproof.

“I am surprised, Rollo,” she said, “that you should have behaved in so indiscreet a fashion. I think that on that occasion it was just as well there was nobody there. I should be exceedingly sorry to witness any such proceeding. It would make me extremely uncomfortable.”

I laughed, and stroked my little sister’s hair.

“What liqueur will you take, Millicent?” I asked.