"Neville?" said Miss Drew, in accents of withering contempt. "You might as well have applied to a village idiot!"

"I know, but there wasn't anyone else. And he is clever, in spite of being so hopeless."

"As judged by village standards?" inquired Neville, mildly interested.

"He may have a kind of brain, but I've yet to hear of him putting himself out for anyone, or behaving like an ordinarily nice person. I can't think how you ever succeeded in persuading him to take it on."

"The dripping of water on a stone," murmured Neville.

"Well having taken it on, I do think you might have put your back into it. Did you even try?"

"Yes, it was a most painful scene."

"Why? Was Ernie furious?"

"Not so much furious as astonished. So was I. You ought to have seen me giving my impersonation of a Nordic public-school man with a reverence for good form and the done-thing. I wouldn't like to swear I didn't beg him to play the game. Ernie ended up by being nauseated, and I'm sure I'm not surprised."

"You know, you're not hard-hearted, you're just soulless," Sally informed him. She glanced at her sister. "Was I invited to stay to be a chaperon?"

"Yes, in a way. Besides, I wanted you."

"Thanks a lot. What happened tonight?"

"Oh, nothing, Sally, nothing! It was silly of me, but I thought if only I could talk quietly to Ernie, and - and throw myself on his generosity, everything would be all right. You were busy with your book, so I got my cloak, and just slipped round by the back way to Greystones, on the off chance of finding Ernie in his study."

"It looks to me as though it wasn't the first time you've called on Ernie like that," interpolated Sally shrewdly.