had taken place in the afternoon. He could not but be kind and
sympathetic as to her difficulties. It was, no doubt, very blind of him
not to see that she was too quickly convinced of the wisdom of his
advice, far too anxious to act as seemed well in his opinion. It never
dawned on his imagination for a moment that the most serious part of the
loss of the end of the season to Molly was the loss of his society
during that time.

They strolled in the moonlight between the cedars and under the great
wall with its alternate "ebon and ivory" of darkest evergreen growths
and masses of white climbing roses, Molly's white gown rustling a little
in the stillness. And Molly discovered with joy that he was trying to
set her mind against marriage with Edgar Tonmore. If he only knew how
little danger there was of that! And under Edmund's influence she
decided to offer herself for a visit of two or three weeks to Mrs.
Carteret, in the old and much disliked home of her childhood. It would
look right; it would give a certain dignity to her position after the
breakdown of the Delaport Green alliance, and it was always a great
mistake to break with natural connections. So far Edmund Grosse; and in
Molly's mind it ran something like this: "He wants me to stand well with
the world, and I will do this, intolerable as it is, to please him. He
likes to think that I have some nice relations, and so I must try to be
friendly with Aunt Anne Carteret, though that is the hardest part. And
he wants me to get away from Edgar Tonmore, and I would go away from so
many more people if he wished it."

The evening passed into night, and Edmund was walking alone under the
wall, dreaming of Rose.

All this foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women