, a last mercy, another chance. They don't sail,
you see, for five or six weeks more, and they haven't - she admits that -
expected Chad would take part in their tour. It's still open to him to join
them, at the last, at Liverpool.«
    Miss Gostrey considered. »How in the world is it open unless you open it?
How can he join them at Liverpool if he but sinks deeper into his situation
here?«
    »He has given her - as I explained to you that she let me know yesterday -
his word of honour to do as I say.«
    Maria stared. »But if you say nothing!«
    Well, he as usual walked about on it. »I did say something this morning. I
gave her my answer - the word I had promised her after hearing from himself what
he had promised. What she demanded of me yesterday, you'll remember, was the
engagement then and there to make him take up this vow.«
    »Well then,« Miss Gostrey enquired, »was the purpose of your visit to her
only to decline?«
    »No; it was to ask, odd as that may seem to you, for another delay.«
    »Ah that's weak!«
    »Precisely!« She had spoken with impatience, but, so far as that at least,
he knew where he was. »If I am weak I want to find it out. If I don't find it
out I shall have the comfort, the little glory, of thinking I'm strong.«
    »It's all the comfort, I judge,« she returned, »that you will have!«
    »At any rate,« he said, »it will have been a month more. Paris may grow,
from day to day, hot and dusty, as you say; but there are other things that are
hotter and dustier. I'm not afraid to stay on; the summer here must be amusing
in a wild - if it isn't a tame - way of its own; the place at no time more
picturesque. I think I shall like it. And then,« he benevolently smiled for her,
»there will be always you.«
    »Oh,« she objected, »it won't be as a part of the picturesqueness that I
shall stay, for I shall be the plainest thing about you. You may, you see, at
any rate,« she pursued, »
