one, if indeed you have really changed it--I don't believe you have." He
smiled at her again. "You didn't hurt my feelings, you did me a service.
I told you so at the time, and I meant it. And, more than that, I
understood."

"You understood--?"

"You were not criticizing me, you were--what shall I say?--merely trying
to iron out some of the inconsistencies of life. Well, you helped me to
iron out some of the inconsistencies of my own. I am profoundly
grateful."

She gazed at him, puzzled. But he did not, he could not enlighten her.
Some day she would discover what he meant.

"If so, I am glad," she said, in a low voice.

They were standing in the midst of the crowd that thronged around the
pavilion. An urchin caught hold of the rector's coat.

"Here he is! Say, Mr. Hodder, ain't you going to have any sody?"

"Certainly we are," he replied, returning Alison's faint smile . . . .
In the confusion that followed he caught a glimpse of her talking to Mr.
Bentley; and later, after he had taken her hand, his eyes followed her
figure wending its way in the evening light through the groups toward
Park Street, and he saw above the tree-tops the red tiled roof of the
great house in which she was living, alone.