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 would have passed him without troubling to look a second time, when she heard herself being addressed.

"You're Mrs. Pentland, aren't you?"

She drew in the mare. "Yes, I'm Mrs. Pentland."

He was a little man, dressed rather too neatly in a suit of checkered stuff, with a high, stiff white collar which appeared to be strangling him. He wore nose-glasses and his face had a look of having been highly polished. As she turned, he took off his straw hat and with a great show of manners came forward, bowing and smiling cordially.

"Well," he said, "I'm glad to hear that I'm right. I hoped I might meet you here. It's a great pleasure to know you, Mrs. Pentland. My name is Gavin. . . . I'm by way of being a friend of Michael O'Hara."

"Oh!" said Olivia. "How do you do?"

"You're not in a great hurry, I hope?" he asked. "I'd like to have a word or two with you."

"No, I'm not in a great hurry."

It was impossible to imagine what this fussy little man, standing in the middle of the road, bowing and smiling, could have to say to her.

Still holding his hat in his hand, he tossed away the end of his cigar and said, "It's about a very delicate matter, Mrs. Pentland. It has to do with Mr. O'Hara's campaign. I suppose you know about that. You're a friend of his, I believe?"

"Why, yes," she said coldly. "We ride together."

He coughed and, clearly ill at ease, set off on a tangent from the main subject. "You see, I'm a great friend of his. In fact, we grew up together . . . lived in the same ward and fought together as boys. You mightn't think it to see us together . . . because he's such a clever one. He's made for big things and I'm not. . . . I'm . . . I'm just plain John Gavin. But we're friends, all the same, just the same as ever . . . just as if he wasn't a big man. That's one thing