Hartley was nearly forty, that dangerously sentimental age, and he began to wonder if, by chance, he had met Clarice Wilder years ago in a Devonshire orchard, life might not have been a wonderful thing.  He called her a “sweet woman” in his mind, and it was almost a pity that Mrs. Wilder did not know, because her sense of humour was subtle and acute, and she would have thoroughly enjoyed the description of herself.  She could read Hartley as quickly as she could read the telegrams in the Mangadone Times, and she could play upon him as she played upon her own grand piano.

She had not asked any questions, and she knew nothing of what Atkins had said about Heath; but her face was set and tense as she drove towards her bungalow.  She was certainly thinking very definitely, quite as definitely as Hartley had been thinking as he watched the moonlight playing hide-and-seek with the shadows of the palm branches and the darkness of the trees, and her thoughts left no pleasant look upon her face or in her eyes; and yet Hartley, on his way to the bungalow where he lived, was thinking of her in a white dress and a shady hat, with a fleecy blue and white sky overhead and the scent of apple-blossom in the air.

The power of romance is strong in adolescence, but it is stronger still when the turnstile of years is reached and there is finality in the air.  Hartley was built for platonics; Fate gave him the necessary touch of the commonplace that dispels romance and replaces it with a kind of deadly domesticity; and yet Hartley was unaware of the fact.

He had never thought of being “in love” with Mrs. Wilder, partly because he felt it would be “no use,” and partly because she had never seemed to expect it from him, but as he walked along the road he began to find that her manner had of late altered considerably.  She seemed to take an interest in him, and though she had always been his friend, her new attitude was charged with invisible electricity.

So far as Mrs. Wilder was concerned, Hartley was to her what a sitting hen would be to a sporting man.  You couldn’t shoot the confiding thing; but you might wring its neck if necessary, or push it out of the way with an impatient foot.  She knew her power over him to a nicety, and she knew of his secret desire for “situations,” because her instinct was never at fault; but she felt nothing more than contempt, slightly charged with pity towards him.  Hartley was a good-natured, idiotic man, and Hartley had principles; Clarice Wilder had none herself, though she felt that they were definite factors in any game, but she also believed that principles were things that could be got over, or got at, by any woman who knew enough about life to manage such as Hartley.

All the same, it was not of Hartley that she thought.  She had been quite truthful when she said that he had suggested Heath to her mind, and that she would have to consider his gaunt face and hollow cheeks during her drive.