those women who would lightly give their women-friends away. Her phrase
"my Stella" had, besides, revealed a world of love and championship.
Thresk warmed to her because of it. He threw reticence to the winds.

"I am going to give you the real reason, Mrs. Repton. I saw her
photograph this afternoon on Mrs. Carruthers' piano, and it left me
wondering whether happiness could set so much character in a
woman's face."

Mrs. Repton shrugged her shoulders.

"Some of us age quickly here."

"Age was not the new thing which I read in that photograph."

Mrs. Repton did not answer. Only her eyes sounded him. She seemed to be
judging the stuff of which he was made.

"And if I doubted her happiness this afternoon I must doubt it still more
now," he continued.

"Why?" exclaimed Mrs. Repton.

"Because of your reticence, Mrs. Repton," he answered. "For you have been
reticent. You have been on guard. I like you for it," he added with a
smile of genuine friendliness. "May I say that? But from the first moment
when I mentioned Stella Ballantyne's name you shouldered your musket."

Mrs. Repton neither denied nor accepted his statement. She kept looking
at him and away from him as though she were still not sure of him, and at