"My heart, my heart is like a singing bird,
    Whose nest is in a watered shoot,"

sang Lallie, and Tony Bevan had set his study door open to listen.

There was no doubt whatever that Lallie was supremely glad to be back at B. House. Even Miss Foster had, at dinner that night, thawed into a semblance of geniality; the girl's pleasure was so manifest, her high spirits so infectious.

Now, alone in the drawing-room, she sang song after song, and, unlike Lallie's songs as a rule, not one of them was sad.

    "Because my love, my love has come to me,"

she carolled.

The melody--exulting, triumphant, a very p?an of rapture, young, glad, valorous--so entirely expressed Tony's own feeling that it drew him with irresistible force, and he went to her.

She did not pause in her song, but sang on with ever-increasing abandon; and Tony, leaning against the end of the piano and watching her, was hard put to it not to tell her there and then what she was to him.

But he was not given to act on the impulse of the moment, and even before the last glad notes had died away there came the old chilling consciousness of the disparity between them: a disparity not of age only, but of temperament. Tony was very humble-minded. On such rare occasions as he thought about himself at all he did not, like Sidney Ballinger, tell himself he "was not a bad fellow." He was only too conscious of his many defects and shortcomings. He hoped he did his best according to his lights, but he acknowledged that those lights were neither brilliant nor searching. And just as there was for Lallie something incongruous in the fact that he was a schoolmaster, so there was for himself something almost ridiculous in the fact that he, of all people in the world, should be hopelessly in love with one so elusive and so complex as was the lady of his dreams.

For just as no mortal on earth could ever be sure what Lallie would do next, Tony least of all: so she and the world in general had a habit of depending upon Tony Bevan and always expecting from him a certain kind of conduct. Nor were they ever disappointed.

"I wonder," said Lallie, looking across the piano at him, "whether you are half as glad to see me as I am to get back."

"Don't I look glad?"

"You always do that; but then, that might only be kindness and politeness on your part. I seem to have been away years."

"You went for three days and stayed three weeks. Were all the outfit, and colds, and dire need for your presence genuine, or was it merely that you were having a good time and wanted to stay at Pinnels?"

"I did have a good time at Pinnels: I always do; but I should have been back long ago had it not been that Mrs. Chester really seemed to want me."

"Mrs. Chester's desire is not incomprehensible, but I hope you are not going away for any more long week-ends, or the holidays will be here, and then----"

"Then I pick up Paddy at the Shop dance, and we both go to Ireland for Christmas; and if you think Aunt Emileen will be sufficient chaperon, reinforced by Paddy, we shall be pleased to see you."

"But I'm supposed to be a chaperon myself."

"Not at all," Lallie said emphatically. "Have you forgotten the dreadful fuss you made because Miss Foster wasn't here when I first came?"

"Ah, but that was different--I have to be away so much here. By the way, have you nothing to say to me, in my capacity of chaperon--Uncle Emileen, if you like--as to the momentous decision you told me you would be called upon to make while you were at Pinnels."

"Tony, dear"--Lallie spoke in a whisper, looking delightfully demure and mischievous--"I was never called upon to make any decision at all. I suppose it was conceit on my part to think I should have to do it. Anyway, I hadn't to, and it saved a lot of trouble."

"Is that quite true, Lallie?"

"In the letter absolutely; in the spirit--well, it takes a lot of explaining when you come to such subtleties. And sometimes one can't explain without bringing in other people who'd perhaps rather be left out."

"Who were the other guests at Pinnels besides you and Mr. Ballinger?"

"A young lady--a young lady after Miss Foster's own heart, I'm sure; so inconspicuous and characterless, she reminded me of the man in the pantomime who is always running across the stage with a parcel and gets knocked down and disappears only to be knocked down next time he crosses the stage with the same inevitable parcel. I'm not sure whether she was the man or the parcel, but she really doesn't come into the story."

"Yes; and who else?"

"Three Chester boys--all nice; there never was a nicer family. And then there was a Mrs. Atwood."

"What was she like?"

"She, Tony, was the kind of person described by their relations as 'highly strung'; she uses immense long words, of Greek origin if possible--at least Billy Chester said so, and he ought to know, being just fresh from Oxford."

"Does Mrs. Chester like your Mr. Ballinger?"

"Why do you call him 'my' Mr. Ballinger? He's nothing of the sort. Yes, Mrs. Chester does like him; she knew him when he was quite young and used to come for the holidays to the uncle who left him all the money, and she was dreadfully sorry for him."

"Who? Ballinger or the uncle?"

"Mr. Ballinger, of course. His parents died when he was quite little, and this uncle and aunt brought him up. There was an aunt then, a dreadful aunt, who thought that everything in the least pleasant was wicked. She considered all games a waste of time. Novels and poetry were an invention of the devil, and such people as the kind, good, merry Chesters 'dangerous companions.' So the poor boy had rather dismal holidays. The only thing she thought good about Rugby was a volume of Dr. Arnold's sermons. Oh, he had a poor time of it."

"Still, they sent him to a good school and then to the 'Varsity. They didn't do very badly by him."

"The aunt died before he went to Cambridge, and his uncle became much more human. For one thing he was awfully pleased because Mr. Ballinger was so quiet and industrious. He didn't waste his time playing cricket and getting blues and things, and so he got a splendid degree--a something first! Are you listening, Tony?"

"I am, most attentively, and it strikes me that if that young man had spent a little more of his time playing games, he might not have got into the particular kind of mischief he did get into--mischief that is apt to make things very uncomfortable later on."

All the time she was talking Lallie had been playing very softly in subdued accompaniment to her remarks. Now she suddenly ceased, and sitting up very straight stared hard at Tony, who still lounged against the other end of the piano devouring her with his eyes.

"What do you mean, Tony?"

"I mean, Lallie, that a young man is apt to pay dearly for a sentimental friendship with a lady of 'highly strung' temperament."

"Where in the world did you hear anything about it?"

"Now where do you think?"

"You don't mean to say that he has actually been to see you and told you himself?"

"That is precisely what I do mean; and having heard the story, I feel it my duty to ask you not to be too hard on the fellow--not to let it influence your decision one way or other; especially now that you have told me of his boyhood, would I beg you to judge leniently."

Lallie's little face grew set and hard, her grey eyes darkened, and the soft curves of her chin took on stern, purposeful lines.

"Just tell me this," she said. "Did he, when he described the somewhat stormy interview with Mrs. Atwood, give you to understand that it was his flirtation with the lady that I objected to? Did he say that now?"

"Well, naturally."

"Then he lied."

"Lallie, my dear child!"

"Since he has chosen to confide in you--though why, Heaven only knows--I will tell you exactly what happened. She made a scene, and he behaved like a brute to her; and it's because he behaved like a brute that I will have nothing more to do with him. He went back on her, Tony; denied that he'd ever cared a toss for her, and before me, too."

"Perhaps there was enormous provocation.............