_Culch._ You are not _required_ to see. I don't _wish_ it, that is
all. I--er--think that should be sufficient.

_Podb._ Oh, all right, _I'll_ keep dark. But she's bound to know
sooner or later, now she and Miss TROTTER have struck up such
a friendship. And HYPATIA will be awfully pleased about it--why
_shouldn't_ she, you know?... I'm going to see if there's anyone on
the tennis-court, and get a game if I can. Ta-ta!

_Culch._ (_alone_). PODBURY knows very little about women. If
HYP--Miss PRENDERGAST--once found out _why_ I renounced my suitorship,
I should have very little peace, I know that--I've taken particular
care not to betray my attachment to MAUD. I'm afraid she's beginning
to notice it, but I must be careful. I don't like this sudden intimacy
between them--it makes things so very awkward. They've been sitting
under that tree over there for the last half-hour, and goodness only
knows what confidences they may have exchanged! I really must go up
and put a stop to it, presently.

_UNDER THE TREE._

_Hypatia._ I only tell you all this, sweetest one, because I _do_
think you have rather too low an opinion of men as a class, and I
wanted to show you that I have met at least _one_ man who was capable
of a real and disinterested devotion.

_Maud._ Well, I allowed that was about your idea.

_Hyp._ And don't you recognise that it was very fine of him to give up