Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The
Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I
should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb,
"Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then THAT for your
story!"

However, I thrived wonderfully on the best authority, and it would
be ungrateful of me to speak evil of that powerful though imaginary
being.

At right angles with the garden walk down which the two were pacing
there was another wide pathway, bordered by high closely clipped
shrubs. Down this paced a very different couple. Mrs. Milton-
Cleave caught sight of them, and so did curate. Mrs. Milton-Cleave
sighed.

"I am afraid he is running after Gertrude Morley! Poor girl! I
hope she will not be deluded into encouraging him."

And then they made just the same little set remarks about the
desirability of stopping so dangerous an acquaintance, and the
impossibility of interfering with other people's affairs, and the
sad necessity of standing by with folded hands. I laughed so much
over their hollow little phrases that at last I was fain to beat a
retreat, and, prompted by curiosity to know a little of the truth, I
followed Sigismund and Gertrude down the broad grassy pathway.

I knew of course a good deal of Zaluski's character, because my own
existence and growth pointed out what he was not. Still, to study a
man by a process of negation is tedious, and though I knew that he