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But how to make Steer sweat without sweating themselves? That was what exercised the Bowdens, each according to his lights and circumstances, which, of course, were very different. Even in this quandary they did not mention the girl Pansy. To do so would have been to touch on feeling; both felt it better to keep to facts and to devices. It was Bowden who put the finishing touch to a long and devious silence.

“If yu don’ du nothin’, Ned, I don’ see how they can ’ave yu. Yu’ve not putt nothin’ on paper. How’m they to tell yu don’ mean to marry her? I’d let ’em stew in their own juice. Don’t yu never admit it. Drop word to that lawyer chap that yu’m not guilty.”

Ned nodded, but underneath his stolidity he could not help feeling that it was not so simple as all that. By him, though not yet quite tired of the girl Pansy, his first choice had begun to be faintly desired again—her refinement ‘in the distance enchanted’ was regaining some of its attraction to his cooling blood. What would have been the course of events but for Steer’s next action is, indeed, uncertain.