distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once
proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving."

"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering
to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about
him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind."

"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else
left us."

She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he
subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty
that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by
admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other
man for being her accomplice.

"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty."

But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to
feel.

"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want--to want things to come out
right."

"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the
consulship?"

"Practically."

"You want to be assured of his taking it."