"Yes, you're a woman. You can get on the right side of him. Will you try
to, because of Fanny? I'm most awfully glad she's got you, and I want
you to stay. Between you and me she has a very thin time with
Waddington."

"There it is. I know--I know--I _know_ I'm going to hate him."

"Oh, no, you're not. You can't _hate_ Waddington."

"_You_ don't?"

"Oh, Lord, no. I wouldn't mind him a bit, poor old thing, if he wasn't
Fanny's husband."

He had almost as good as owned it, almost put her in possession of their
secret. She conceived it--his secret, Fanny's secret--as all innocence
on her part, all chivalry on his; tender and hopeless and pure.


2

They had come to the white gate that led between the shrubberies and the
grass-plot with the yellow-grey stone house behind it.

It was nice, she thought, of Fanny to make Mr. Bevan take her for these
long walks when she couldn't go with them; but Barbara felt all the time
that she ought to apologize to the young man for not being Fanny,
especially when Mr. Waddington was coming back to-day by the three-forty
train and this afternoon would be their last for goodness knew how long.