"Lady Blake would be of great use in choosing it,
and for the matter of that, in trying it on. If you
wait here a moment I'll go and fetch her. She's got
her hat on, I know."

So it happened that, in three or four minutes, just
long enough for Sir John to begin to feel impatient,
Jervis's mother came out of the Trellis House. She
was smiling up into the great surgeon's face, and her
husband told himself that it was an extraordinary
thing how this wedding had turned their minds --
all their minds -- away from Jervis's coming ordeal.

"I wonder if Rose would like a broad or narrow
wedding ring?" said Lady Blake thoughtfully. "I'm
afraid there won't be very much choice in a place like
Witanbury."

Sir Jacques looked after the couple for a few moments,
then he turned and went into the Trellis House,
and so into the drawing-room.

"Bachelors," he said meditatively, "sometimes have
a way of playing the very mischief between married
couples -- eh, Mrs. Otway? So it's only fair that now
and again a bachelor should do something towards
bringing a couple together again."

She looked at him, surprised. What odd -- and yes,
rather improper things -- Sir Jacques sometimes said!
But -- but he was a _very_ kind man. Mrs. Otway was
a simple woman, though she would have felt a good
deal nettled had anyone told her so.

"I rather wonder," she said impulsively, "why _you_
never married. You seem to approve of marriage,
Sir Jacques?" She was looking into his face with
an eager, kindly look.

"If you look at me long enough," he said slowly,

[[261]]

p260 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p261w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p262

v?