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Lady Cassandra

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey · English · Gutenberg #32882 · 636,192 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Lady Cassandra

Author: Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey


        
Release date: June 18, 2010 [eBook #32882]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32882

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY CASSANDRA ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Lady Cassandra, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey.

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LADY CASSANDRA, BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY.



CHAPTER ONE.

A MATRIMONIAL HURDLE.

Cassandra Raynor stood on the terrace of her great house, looking over
the sweep of country stretching to right and left, and in her heart was
the deadliest of all weariness,--the weariness of repletion.  It seemed
at that moment the bitterest cross that she had nothing left for which
to wish, that everything good which the world could give was hers
already, and had left her cold.

The stately old house was hers, with its treasures of old-world
furnishings, the same furnishings which had ministered to generations
dead and gone, and would minister to others yet to come.  It would have
been considered sacrilege to stamp the individuality of the chatelaine
of an hour on those historic halls.  The distant stretch of country was
part of her estate, but the sight of it brought no thrill to Cassandra's
veins.  Her jaded eyes had wearied of the familiar landscape, as they
had wearied of the interior of the house, in which she seemed more a
tenant than a mistress.

Cassandra wandered idly to and fro, obsequiously shadowed by obsequious
servants, and wondered what it would feel like to live in a
semi-detached villa, and arrange one's own rooms in one's own way, and
frill pink silk curtains, and festoon lamp shades, and run to the door
to meet a husband returning from the City.  She herself had never run to
meet Bernard.  If she had once begun that sort of thing, she might have
been running all day long, for he was always in and out.  She wondered
what it would feel like to have a husband who disappeared regularly at
nine a.m., and returned at seven.  One might be quite glad to see him!

Cassandra had done her duty to the family by producing a healthy male
child within eighteen months of her marriage.  So sorely had she
suffered in giving birth to her son that there was no hope of a second
child to bear him company, but there had been no regret nor self-pity in
her mother's heart during those first hours in which he lay, red and
crumpled, within her arms.  Never while she lived could Cassandra forget
the rest, the thankfulness, the deep, uplifted joy of those hours.  It
had seemed to her then that with the coming of the child all gaps must
be filled, and all the poverty of life be turned into gold.  But... was
it her own fault, or the fault of circumstances which had brought about
the disillusionment?  It had been difficult to believe that the stolid,
well-behaved young person, who walked abroad between two white-robed
nurses, spoke when he was spoken to, and tucked his feeder carefully
beneath his chin, was really her own child, bone of her bone, flesh of
her flesh; the wonder child of whom she had dreamt such dreams.

Cassandra had known nothing of babies; Mrs Mason, the head nurse, knew
everything, and Bernard was tenacious of the safety of his heir.  He
thought it a pity for his wife to "interfere," and said as much with his
usual frankness.  He did not approve of young children being in
evidence, and discouraged the boy's appearance downstairs.  At an
unusually early age also he selected a preparatory school at the far end
of the county, and henceforth Bernard the younger visited home for the
holidays only, and was no longer a member of the household proper.
Cassandra loved him, but,--she had wanted to love him so much more!  In
those first hours she had imagined a bond of union so strong and tender
that the commonplaces of the reality could not fail to be a
disappointment.  Bernard was a dutiful boy, a sensible boy, a boy who
brought home satisfactory reports; he considered the Mater a good sort,
and appreciated her generosity.  Her affection he endured, her
tenderness he would have abhorred, but it was as difficult to be tender
to Bernard the son, as to Bernard the father.  Cassandra had abandoned
the attempt.

And, socially speaking, the Court was situated in a hopeless part of the
county.  The other two big places in the neighbourhood were occupied,
the one by an objectionable _nouveau riche_, and the other by an elderly
couple of such strong evangelical tendencies that they disapproved of
everything which other people enjoyed.  There were, it is true, a few
pleasant families at the other side of the county, but though they could
be counted upon for state occasions, the intervening miles forbade
anything like easy, everyday intimacy.  In autumn the Raynors
entertained a succession of guests for the shooting, but for the rest of
the year Bernard discouraged house parties.  He was bored by Cassandra's
friends, she was bored by his, the guests were mutually bored by each
other, what then was the use of going to trouble and expense?

As for Chumley, the nearest small township, a mile or less from the
nearest gate of the Court, from Cassandra's point of view "No-one" lived
there--literally no one, but a few dull, suburban families who gave
afternoon tea parties, gossiped about their neighbours, and wore
impossible clothes.  Cassandra maintained that there was not a creature
in Chumley worth knowing, but Bernard said that was nonsense, there must
be some decent women among them, if she would only be decent in return!
Cassandra maintained that she was decent; she called on them sometimes,
and she asked them to garden parties.  One could do no more.

Cassandra had been married ten years, and would be thirty on her next
birthday.  When one was a girl it had seemed so impossibly dull to be
thirty.  And it was; Cassandra thought it would be vastly more agreeable
to be forty, at once, and be done with it.  At forty, one began to grow
stout and grey, to lie down in the afternoon, and feel interested in
committee meetings, and societies, and other people's business.  At
thirty, one was still so painfully interested in oneself!

At forty, one _was_ old, looked it, felt it, acknowledged it with body
and mind... but at thirty, it was difficult to be consistently discreet.
At thirty, one _knew_ one was old; with the brain one knew it, but it
was impossible to live consistently up to the knowledge.  There were
moments when one felt so extraordinarily, so incredibly young, moments
when the mirror, instead of crying shame on such folly, backed one up in
delusion, and gave back the reflection of a girl!

Cassandra thanked Providence daily for her eyes, her hair, her straight
back, and the dimple in her chin.  Viewed in full, her face was a
charming oval; taken in halves it supplied two admirable profiles.  The
nose leant a trifle to the left, so that was the side on which she chose
to be photographed and on which she bestowed the prettiest side of her
hats.  Cassandra and the mirror enjoyed the hats, and Chumley
disapproved.  That was all the satisfaction she got out of their
purchase.  Bernard took no notice of clothes during the enchanting
period of their youth, but just when his wife was feeling tired to death
of a garment, he would awake to a consciousness of its existence and
cry: "Holloa, what's this?  You are mighty smart.  Another new frock?"
Cassandra wished to goodness as he was not more observant, he would not
be observant at all.  It made it so awkward to order new things.

Cassandra seated herself in a deep cushioned chair, folded her hands in
her lap, and began one of the animated conversations with her inner self
which were the resource of her idle hours.  It was so comfortable
talking to oneself,--one could be honest, could say precisely what one
meant, need have no tiresome fears for other people's susceptibilities.

"What's the matter with me that I feel so restless and dull?  I ought to
be contented and happy, but I'm not.  I'm bored to death, and the
trouble of it is,--I can't think why!  I've everything I could wish for,
and I'm as unsatisfied as if I'd nothing.  In the name of fortune, my
dear, _what do you want_?--It comes to this--I'm either a morbid,
introspective, weak-minded fool or else I'm noble and fine, and am
stretching out for higher things.  I'd like to think it was the last,
but I'm not at all sure!  I don't long to be great or noble, or superior
in any way--only just to be happy, and at rest...  I wonder if by chance
I'm unhappily married?  That would account for so much.  I wonder if I
ruined my life when I gave in, and said `yes' to Bernard!  If I did, it
was with the best intentions.  I _was_ fond of him.  When a dull, quiet
man gets really worked up, there's something extraordinarily compelling.
And I expected he'd _stay_ worked up.  At eighteen any girl would.
There ought to be a Bureau of Matrimonial Intelligence to prevent them
from making such mistakes.  I'd be the secretary, and say: `My dear, he
won't!  This is only a passing conflagration.  It will die out, and
he'll revert to the normal.  You'll have to live with the normal till
death do you part.  It doesn't follow that you'll quarrel...  Ah! my
dear girl, there are so many worse things!  It's deplorable, of course,
to quarrel with one's husband, but the reconciliation might be worth the
pain.  You might put your head on his shoulder, and say: "It was every
bit your fault, and the rest was mine.  Kiss me! and we'll never do it
again!" and he'd choose the prettiest dimple, and kiss you there, and do
it so nicely, you'd long to quarrel again.  Oh, yes, there are points
about quarrelling, but it's so hopelessly uningratiating to be--bored.
The worse you feel, the less you can say.  Imagine telling a man that he
bored you to extinction, and expecting to be kissed in return!  Being
bored goes on and on, and never works itself off'...  Bernard is good
and loyal, and honourable, and just,--and I'm _so_ tired of him.  I
_am_; and I can't pretend any longer.  We've lived together in peace and
boredom for ten long years, and something within me seems wearing out--

"I wonder how many married people come up against this hurdle?  Its name
is satiety, and it is bristling with difficulties.  I've a suspicion
that if one could get cleanly over, it would be a safe trot home.  But
it blocks the way.  I'm up against it now--"

Cassandra rested an elbow on the arm of her chair, and leant her head on
the uplifted hand.  A thrill of something like fear ran through her
veins.  The simile of the hurdle had leapt into her mind subconsciously,
as such things will, but the conscious mind recognised its face.  Along
the quiet path lay no chance for the reforming of life; it must
necessarily be some shock, some upheaval, which would either open out
new fields, or gild the old with some of the vanished splendour.  Even
if one failed to reach the goal without a toss, a toss was preferable to
an eternal jog-trot.

Cassandra narrowed her eyes, and stared into space, but no man's face
pictured itself in her mind; for ten long years Bernard had, for good or
ill, filled the foreground of her life, not the mildest of flirtations
had been hers.  She was a pure-minded woman, bred on conventional lines,
and the idea of a lover would have outraged her delicacy.  In
considering the events which might possibly vitalise the future, her
mind dwelt on strictly legitimate happenings.  A serious illness,--her
own,--Bernard's,--the boy's; the loss of money; a lengthened separation,
which would revive joys staled by custom.  Regarded dispassionately the
prospects were not cheerful, nevertheless she found herself cheered by
the contemplation.  She saw herself occupied, engrossed, with something
to do, a real object in life.  It might be a reviving experience to have
one of the Bernards--not dangerously so, of course, but just enough ill
to feel dependent on the one woman in the family.  Even to be ill
oneself would have points.  She would sit propped up against her best
pillow covers, wearing a distracting bed jacket and cap, and Bernard
would come in, and look at her, and say,--What would he say?
Cassandra's smile was twisted with a pathetic humour.  "Holloa, old
girl.  Got 'em _all_ on!  Bucking up a bit, ain't you?  I'm off for a
ride..."  Rather a tame denouement to which to look forward as the
reward for weeks of suffering!  Cassandra determined on the whole that
she would rather keep well.

And the two Bernards,--what sort of convalescents would they make?
Cassandra drew a mental picture of the sick room, with the older patient
stretched on a couch, and herself seated by his side, a devoted and
assiduous nurse, but there was an obstinate commonplaceness about father
and son which refused to adapt itself to the scene.  Bernard would have
no reflections to make on the wonder of life restored; he would want to
hear the _Sporting Times_ read aloud, and the latest news of the crops.
His tenderest acknowledgment of her care would be a, "Looking a bit
peaked, old girl!  What's the sense of paying a nurse and doing the work
yourself?"  As for the boy, he would talk cricket, be politely bored,
and surreptitiously wipe off kisses.  Cassandra determined that on the
whole the two Bernards had better keep well also!

As for poverty--one would certainly have enough to do to run a house on
a few hundreds a year, but though viewed generally the prospect sounded
picturesque, a definite narrowing down to a comparison with one of the
many Chumley homesteads, brought a quick shudder of distaste.  The
narrow rooms, the inferior servants, the infinitesimal gardens,--
Cassandra thrust out her hands in horror of the thought, and laughed a
soft, full-throated laugh.

"If I am bound to be dissatisfied, let me at least have room to be
dissatisfied in!  I could bear being stinted in almost anything rather
than _space_.  If Bernard loses his money, we'll go abroad and live on a
prairie,--anything rather than a stifling villa."

She turned her head as the door opened, and her husband entered, and
crossed the room to a bureau in the far corner.  He wore the usual tweed
suit, the Norfolk jacket accentuating his increasing width, the loose
knickerbockers revealing large, well-shaped legs.  His skin was tanned
to a rich brown, his eyes were a clear hard blue, his teeth strong and
white, his moustache was cut in a straight harsh line along the upper
lip.  His cool gaze included his wife with the rest of the furnishings,
but he gave no acknowledgment of her presence; not a flicker of
expression passed over his face.

There came to Cassandra suddenly, irrepressibly, the necessity of
shocking him into life.  She was not a woman who indulged in scenes; it
came naturally to her to hide her feelings, and act a part before the
world.  If Bernard had not entered at just that psychological moment, if
he had looked one bit less sleek, and satisfied, and dense, she could
have gone on acting, as she had done for years past; as it was, a desire
for expression rose with giant force, and would not be gainsaid.  Very
well!  So be it.  For once she would speak out, and Bernard should hear.
She had an acute, a devastating curiosity to hear what he would say.

"Bernard, are you busy?  I want to speak to you."

He turned his head.  The clear tints of his skin looked startlingly
healthy as seen in the light of the great open window.

"All right!  Fire ahead."

"Bernard, do you love me?"

"Good Lord!"  The utter stupefaction on Raynor's face proved that this
was the last of all questions which he had expected to hear.  He came
across the room, and stood staring down into his wife's face.  "What the
dickens is up?"

"Nothing is up.  I asked you a simple question.  What should be up?"

"I thought you'd taken offence at something I'd done!"

"You have done nothing in the least unusual that I know of.  I rather
wish you had.  _Do_ you, Bernard?"

"Do I what?"

"You know quite well, but I'll ask you again, if you prefer it.  Do you
love me, Bernard?"

The man's ruddy face took a deeper tinge.

"I say, Cass, what rot is this?  That was settled and done with years
ago.  I married you.  You're my wife.  If you are not sure of me by this
time, you never will be."

"You are quite sure of yourself?"

"Of course I am.  What d'you mean?  I'm not the sort to er--er--"

Cassandra turned her head over her shoulder and flung him a challenging
glance, her blue eyes bright with defiance.

"Then you had better understand, Bernard, once for all, that--I am not
sure of myself!  I'm not at all sure that I love _you_!"

She had said it.  The words rang like a clarion call through the silent
room.  After years of self-deception, and careful covering up, a
moment's impulse had laid bare the skeleton.  It stood between them, a
naked horror, grinning with fleshless lips.  Cassandra saw it and
shuddered at the sight, but it was too late to draw back.  She caught
her breath, and sat tremblingly waiting for what should come.

What came was a burst of hearty, good-natured laughter.  Bernard's eyes
twinkled, his white teeth gleamed.  He stretched out a freckled hand and
laid it on his wife's arm.

"That's all right, old girl!  Don't you worry about that.  You're fond
of me all right, and a rattling good wife.  We've been married a dozen
years, and never had a row.  If all couples got along as well as we do,
things would be a sight better.  What's the use of bothering about love
at this time of day.  I'm not a sentimental fellow.  I'm satisfied with
things as they are.  So are you too, as a rule.  Got a fit of the blues,
that's all!--I say, Cass, Peignton's coming to tea, and I met that girl
of the Mallison's,--Teresa, isn't it?--and asked her to come along too,
and make up a game afterwards.  She plays a good hand, and Peignton's
engaged to her they say, or going to be.  So we will do them a good
turn, as well as ourselves."

Cassandra rose slowly, straightening her shoulders as if throwing off a
weight.  Standing there her head was on a level with her husband's, and
for a moment their eyes met, his calm and unperturbed, hers sparkling
and defiant.  She had spoken.  He had heard the truth, and had laughed
at her for her pains.  Now let the Fates bring what they might.  He had
been warned...

"Very well, Bernard.  I'll have tea early.  Shall I order the car to
take her home?"

"Er--no.  They'll send.  Pony cart or some contraption of the kind.
Peignton'll look after her all right."

He chuckled, aroused to interest in a prospective romance, though his
own had faded.  He turned, softly whistling, and fumbled in the bureau,
while Cassandra beat a retreat to her own room.

Now she was angry with herself, sore with the humiliation of an
unnecessary rebuff.  "How futile of me!  How superfluous to bring it on
my own head!  What did I expect?" she asked herself bitterly.  She stood
staring out of the window at the landscape, already darkening in the
short February light, while the thoughts chased themselves in her brain.
Her youth,--Bernard,--her marriage,--the birth of her child,--ennui,--
disappointment,--emptiness.  The different stages seemed to follow one
after another in relentless sequence; they merged together in nebulous
confusion.  Then suddenly her thoughts switched to another topic.

"Teresa!" she found herself repeating, "Teresa Mallison!"  With critical
accuracy she was conjuring up the picture of a tall, thickly built girl,
with fair hair, fresh complexion, and a narrow, long-chinned face.  In
Chumley circles Teresa Mallison was considered a pretty girl, and pretty
she was, and would be, so long as the glow of youth disguised the
harshness of her features.  Cassandra acknowledged as much with the
generosity which most women show towards the attractions of their
sisters, difficult as masculine incredulity finds it to credit the fact.
Teresa Mallison was quite a pleasant sort of girl, amiable and
unaffected, and quite angelic about accepting eleventh-hour invitations
to fill a vacant place.  One way and another she had been a fairly
frequent visitor at the Court, during the last year, but imagine
_choosing_ to live all one's life with such a companion!  Imagine
breakfasting throughout the years with Teresa Mallison as a _vis-a-vis_;
being sad with Teresa, glad with Teresa, living day after day with
Teresa; growing old, dying, always, always with Teresa; watching her
heavy form grow heavier, her long face longer, seeing the wrinkles
gather round the light blue eyes, listening always, for ever, to the
thin, toneless voice, the recurrent spasms of laughter.  Dane Peignton
too; Peignton of all men!  Not one of the ordinary, uninteresting
Chumley natives, but the most attractive bachelor in the neighbourhood!
That made the mystery deeper.

Dane Peignton was a comparatively new-comer to the neighbourhood; was in
fact only a bird of passage, being a temporary tenant of a small place a
few miles distant from the Court, during its owner's sojourn abroad.
Peignton had retired from the Army after a serious breakdown in health,
and being not overburdened with this world's goods, had been delighted
to accept from old friends the loan of a house for a couple of years,
the responsibility of superintending the up-keep of the estate being
taken as a _quid pro quo_ against rent.  Being country-bred, he had
little difficulty in fitting into his new duties, and in envisaging the
future, felt that after Vernon's return, he would like nothing better
than to secure a land agency, live quietly in the country, and take up
country sports.  Given a few congenial neighbours, and a library of
books, he would feel no hankerings for town.

An hour later Cassandra descended the great staircase, and made her way
to the drawing-room to await her guests.  She had discarded her morning
dress, and moved by some subtle impulse of coquetry had decked herself
in a new creation, which was pleased to call itself a bridge gown.  Even
she herself would have been puzzled to give an accurate explanation of
her own motives in so doing; so many elements entered, and intermingled.
Bernard had repulsed her,--let him see what manner of woman he had
repulsed!  The remembrance of the girl, rich in youth and love, came
also as a spur to the woman to whom the years had brought disillusion.
Teresa Mallison had placed her on a pinnacle, and worshipped her as a
marvel of grace and beauty,--she wished to retain the girl's admiration,
wished for her own sake to feel conscious of looking her best.  She
dressed for Bernard's benefit, for Teresa's, for her own; the only
person of whom she took no account was Dane Peignton himself.  He stood
outside her life.

The great drawing-room with its white panelled walls looked somewhat
cold and austere, but round the log fire was a little haven of comfort,
where four Spanish leather screens formed a background for deeply
cushioned sofas.  The firelight played on the rich colouring of the old
leather work, on the dainty equipments of the tea table; on Cassandra
herself in her rose-red draperies, on the face, that was so young and
vivid, on the eyes which were so tired.

Dane Peignton approaching from the further end of the room had a moment
to take in the details of the scene, before she saw him in her turn, and
the picture stayed in his mind.

Cassandra on her part regarded Peignton with the added curiosity which
every woman feels towards an embryo lover, seeing him in a new light, as
a central figure in the eternal drama.  She saw a tall man with a
military bearing, somewhat at variance with bowed shoulders, a
clean-shaven face, not handsome, not plain, the features large and
roughly hewn, the eyes a dark steel grey.  Yet he was attractive.  Why
was he so attractive?  Cassandra pondered the question while keeping up
a light flow of conversation, and arrived at varying conclusions.  It
was his eyes.  It was his mouth.  It was his mobility of expression.  It
was an air of weakness underlying strength, which evoked sympathy and
interest.  He _was_ attractive, that was the end of the matter; and he
cared for Teresa Mallison!

The door opened, and Teresa was announced.  She had discarded her coat
and appeared in a short dark skirt, and a white blouse, transparent at
the neck, and displaying a goodly length of bare brown arms.  Her feet
looked disproportionately large in walking shoes, and there was a hint
of the provincial in her gait.  One descried at a glance that it was not
often her lot to make an entrance into so stately a room.  Cassandra
rose to greet her with an involuntary feeling of commiseration.  A few
minutes before she had come near grudging the girl her good fortune, now
at the sight of her, her heart melted with pity.  So _gauche_, so raw!
The heavy looks, the reddened arms.  Cassandra's fastidious eye took in
the blemishes at a glance, and the feminine in her rose on the girl's
behalf.  She placed her on the corner of the sofa, nearest the softly
tinted light, moved a table to her side, with a deft hand twitched away
a dark cushion and substituted one of a vivid blue.  The effect was
transforming, for once the dark skirt was hidden from sight the filmy
blouse became at once dainty and appropriate, while the softened light
showed to advantage the gleam in the fair, coiled hair, the youthful
pink and white of the complexion.  Cassandra glanced at Peignton to see
if he appreciated the picture; and discovered him leaning forward,
looking into the girl's face with pleasure and admiration.  Teresa was
smiling back, and showing her large white teeth.  Cassandra squeezed her
lips into a tight little knot, and told herself she was very pleased.
But _how foolish_ they looked!

Bernard came in, and sat himself down with deliberation.  He enjoyed
afternoon tea, insisted on having a table to himself, and a supply of
hot buttered toast.  Hardly a day passed that he did not ask for a
second supply, and give instructions as to liberality with the butter.
He drank three cups of tea, and helped himself largely to cream.  And
then he wondered that he grew stout!  Cassandra nibbled daintily at
minute wafers of bread, and the girl on the sofa ate sweet cakes with
youthful relish.

"What's the news, Miss Mallison?"  Bernard asked between his mouthfuls
of toast.  It was a question which he never failed to ask, and Teresa
Mallison's replies never failed to evoke the expected amusement.  She
believed so implicitly that he was interested in the doings of that
dead-alive little hole, and brought out her little items with such an
air of importance.

"The Vicar has asked me to decorate the chancel for Easter."

"Don't you do it!  Lots of trouble, and nobody pleased.  Let someone
else take that job."

"Oh, but"--Teresa looked shocked--"I want to!  It's an honour.  I've
only done the finials before.  But it needs lots of flowers.  I wondered
if..."

"I'll bet you did!  They always do."  Bernard laughed good-naturedly.
"All right, Miss Teresa; you shall have them.  Someone has them every
year, and I'd sooner give them to you than most.  Tell Dawes what you
want, and I'll see that he remembers.  And if you want him to help--"

"Oh, thanks!"  Teresa's cheeks showed a deeper colour.  "I have some
helpers.  Mr Peignton has promised."

"That's right, Peignton!  Make yourself useful."  Bernard's smile was so
significant, that Teresa made haste to give the conversation a turn.

"The Martin Beverleys have come home."

"They have, have they?  That's the author fellow who married the
heiress, who was not an heiress, because she gave it all up to marry
him.  Chucked away,--how much was it?  Fifty thousand a year?"

"Thirty!"

"Ah well, thirty's good enough!  He didn't seem to me, the few times
I've met him, exactly cheap at the price.  Good-looking enough in a
fashion, and plays a fair game, but a stiff, reserved kind of beggar.
Takes himself too seriously for my taste.  They tell me he writes good
books."

Teresa waxed eloquent in favour of the local celebrity.

"Oh, beautiful!  He is one of the best authors.  The last one was the
best of all.  It's run through several editions.  You ought to read it,
Mr Raynor."

"Can't stick novels!" declared Bernard, who was never known to read a
line beyond the morning papers.  "Can't understand how anyone can when
they've passed the cub stage.  And as to writing them--Good Lord!  Fancy
that old solemn sides Beverley writing an impassioned love scene!  Beats
me how he manages to do it."

"It wouldn't, if you knew Mrs Beverley!"  Teresa said sagely.  Her blue
eyes brightened, she drew a long, eloquent breath.  "She is--adorable!"

The men laughed.  Cassandra looked up with a dawning of interest.

"She was Grizel Dundas, niece of that terrible old woman.  I've heard of
her often, but we never met.  I've met Mr Beverley and his sister, that
handsome girl who went to India: they have been here to several garden
parties.  He is certainly rather stiff, but one feels from his books
that he must be worth knowing.  It's interesting to know a man for whom
a woman has given up so much, but still more interesting to meet the
woman.  Tell us, Teresa, what she is like!"

But Teresa wrinkled her brows, and looked vague and perplexed.  She
could enthuse, but it appeared that she could not describe.

"Er--it's so difficult!  She's like no one else.  I've never met anyone
in the _least_ like her."

Cassandra put the invariable question:

"Is she pretty?"

"Oh, lovely!"  Teresa cried.  "At least--sometimes!  She changes.  I've
heard people call her plain.  But you hardly think of her looks.  She's
so--" Again she hesitated, and became lost in confusion.  Cassandra
probed once more.

"So--_what_?  Teresa, do please be definite!  I'm interested in this
Mrs Beverley.  If she's really plain, it's so clever of her to look
lovely.  If she is lovely, it's so stupid of her to look plain.  _What_
is she so--?"

"Funny!" gasped Teresa, and giggled triumphantly.  "Yes, she _is_ funny!
She says funny things.  In a funny way.  She is not a bit like--"

"Teresa--_what_?"

"Chumley," said Teresa, and involuntarily Cassandra heaved a sigh of
relief.

"Lovely.  Plain.  Funny.  Not a bit like Chumley."  Cassandra noted each
point with an infinitesimal nod; into her eyes there danced a spark of
light.  "This sounds exciting!  I shall call upon Mrs Beverley."

"Thankful to hear it!"  Raynor grumbled.  "You ought to call a lot more.
People expect it.  It would please 'em, and be good for you.  You shut
yourself up, and get hipped.  A woman needs gossip, to let off steam."

Cassandra's light laugh carried off the personality of the remark, but
after the laugh came a sigh, a ghost of a sigh of whose passing her
husband and Teresa remained serenely unconscious.  Only Peignton heard
it, and his eyes turned to rest upon her face.

There was in his glance an intentness, an understanding which gave the
impression of barriers thrust aside.  Cassandra was startled by it, and
discomposed.  She had reached the stage when she did not expect to be
understood.  That such a stranger as this man should have read her
thoughts seemed at the moment a deliberate offence.  She lowered her
lids with an impulse of self-defence.

"It is five o'clock," she said shortly.  "Bernard, if you can tear
yourself from buttered toast, shall we begin bridge?"



CHAPTER TWO.

WANTED--A WIFE.

It was a pretty sight to see Cassandra Raynor play bridge.  When dummy
fell to her turn, she had a trick of stretching out her right hand, and
softly tapping the table, during a moment's deliberation, which gave the
onlookers an opportunity of admiring what is certainly one of the most
beautiful of created objects, an exquisitely made, exquisitely tended,
woman's hand.  There was but one ring on the hand, a square-cut emerald,
surrounded by diamonds, and the milky whiteness of the skin, the flash
of the emerald against the dull green of the baize, were charming things
to behold.  Peignton sent a keen glance of enquiry into Cassandra's
face, and felt relieved to behold its absorption.  She was thinking
entirely of the game; the beauty of her hand was to her an accepted
fact; the gesture was actuated by no promptings of vanity.  A few
minutes later when Teresa imitated the gesture, as she had fallen into
the habit of imitating Cassandra in a dozen small ways, Peignton stared
assiduously at his cards, but there was an extra empressment in the
voice in which he congratulated the girl at the end of the game.  He
felt the same tender commiseration which a parent knows at the sight of
a blemish on a child.  Rough luck on a girl to have such ugly hands!
Subconsciously his mind registered a vow never to give her emeralds.

During a term of service abroad Peignton had met few women, and those of
an uncongenial type, but now he wished to marry, and for some time past
had been consciously regarding every girl he met in the light of a
future wife.  He was not romantic in his requirements--few men are, when
they deliberately set about such a search.  He wanted a wife because he
was thirty-five, and not too strong, and if he ever settled down it was
time he did it, and a fellow felt lonely having no one to think of but
himself.  He wanted a girl about twenty-five--not younger than that,--
healthy and cheerful, and fond of a country life, and, after eight
months' residence in Chumley, it appeared to him that Teresa Mallison
filled the bill.  She was the prettiest and most sporting girl in the
neighbourhood; he met her on one excuse or another several times a week,
and considered complacently that he was falling in love.  Teresa did not
consider at all,--she would have been hanged and quartered for him at
any moment of any day; she was prepared to do, what is far more
difficult--marry him on a minute income, keep house with insufficient
help, and rear a large family.  Teresa's tastes were modern, but her
heart was Victorian.  She looked up to Peignton as a god and hero, and
prayed daily to be permitted to serve him on her knees.  Also, being
Victorian in modesty, she prayed with scarcely less fervour that "unless
he asked her" he might never suspect her love, and comported herself in
the spirit of that prayer.  Therefore Peignton considered that she was
ignorant of his designs, and told himself that there was no hurry,--no
hurry.  It was better to go slow.

This was the first informal occasion on which Peignton had visited the
Court and seen Cassandra in the intimacy of a _partie carree_, and
before the first hour was over he had found it necessary to readjust
many impressions concerning his hostess.  First, she was younger than he
imagined.  When she smiled, or made little grimaces of disgust at
incidents in the play, or lifted her eyebrows at him appealingly on the
commission of a fault, she was not a great lady any more, she was a
girl, like the girl by her side.  Secondly, she was less beautiful.  He
had seen her at stately dinner parties, gorgeously gowned, a tiara
flashing on her dark head, and had believed her to be faultless of
feature; but she was not faultless, her nose deviated noticeably from
the straight, her mouth was too large; on a nearer view the classical
beauty disappeared, but her place was taken by a woman infinitely more
alluring.  He admired in especial the poise of the little head, and the
way in which she dressed her hair.  It was parted in the middle, dipped
low on the forehead, and then swept upwards, and in some mysterious
fashion became a thick plait which encircled her head, like a victor's
crown.  There seemed no beginning or end to that plait, so deftly was it
woven, and to the onlooker it appeared as if a Midas finger had laid a
gentle touch on each entwining braid, so brightly shone out the golden
tints in the brown, burnished hair.  Peignton had never seen dark hair
show such brilliant lights; he thought that wreath-like plait with the
golden lights more beautiful than a hundred tiaras.  Why did not all
women wear their hair like that?

And her figure too--there was something beguiling about her figure.  The
softly swathed folds of silk suggested neither dressmaker nor
corsetiere, but a warm, living woman.  Her neck was as white as her
hand...

"Steam ahead, Peignton.  We're waiting for your declaration.  What are
you dreaming about, man?"

"Don't ask me.  I couldn't tell you," Peignton replied, truthfully
enough.  He had been wondering how the deuce a woman like that had come
to marry Bernard Raynor!

Teresa played a good steady game, and forbore to chatter, a fact duly
appreciated by her host.  Cassandra was alternately brilliant and
careless.  At times looking across the table Peignton could see her eyes
grow absent and misty, and suspected thoughts far removed from the play.
Then he would wait with anticipated pleasure the deprecatory grimace,
the penitent, appealing glance.

At seven o'clock Miss Mallison's carriage was announced, and Teresa
exhibited a dutiful daughter's unwillingness "to keep the horse
waiting."  In the great hall she slid her arms into a Burberry coat,
pulled a knitted cap over her head, and passing out of the porch sprang
lightly to the front seat of a shabby dog-cart.  The coachman, shabby to
match, stood at the horse's head, and as Peignton took his place, looked
on with an impenetrability which denoted that this was not the first
time he had been superseded.  Then he in his turn climbed to a back
seat, and the horse trotted off down the dark avenue.

Teresa had looked forward with keenest anticipation to this moment when
she and Dane would sit quietly together in the friendly dark.  There was
no expectation of love-making in her mind, far less of a formal
declaration; she was content just to sit by his side, and leaning back
in her seat be able to gaze her fill at the strong, dark form.  On a
previous occasion he had given her the reins to hold while he lit a
cigarette, and the picture of his face illumined by the tiny flame of
the match would remain for life in her mental gallery.  She hoped he
would light a cigarette to-night.

If the inchoate thoughts of the girl's mind could have been translated
into words at that moment, they would have made a poem, but Teresa had
not the gift of expression.  She asked herself several times what she
should "talk about," before at last she broke the silence.

"You see it _did_ pay to discard from strength!"

Peignton laughed.  The point had been disputed between the two times and
again, but he felt an amused admiration of the manner in which the girl
held to her point.  To-night his remembrance of the game was hazy, but
Teresa as the victor was entitled to complaisance.

"You played rattling well.  You always do.  I never knew a woman less
miserly of trumps.  Do you know Lady Cassandra well?"

"I--think so!"  Doubt lingered in Teresa's voice.  "They ask me fairly
often.  She's very kind.  Of course, we're not--intimate.  She's so much
older."

"Is she?"  Peignton asked, and was happily unaware of his companion's
flush of displeasure.  "She looks very young.  It must be lonely for her
in that big place.  I'm glad she has you for a friend."  His voice
softened as he spoke the last, words.  He turned his head to cast a
smiling glance at the girl's figure, and the thought came to his mind
that just in this simple, unpretentious fashion would they drive back to
their joint home during the years to come.  It would not run to more
than a cart, but she had not been used to luxury, and was quite content
in her Burberry and cap.  It was not like marrying a society woman.
Heaven knows what fallals Lady Cassandra would don for a like occasion.
Peignton admired "fallals," meaning by the term dainty, feminine
accessories, as all men do, apart from the question of price.  He could
not for his life have described Cassandra's costume that evening, but it
had left its impression as a mysterious floating thing, infinitely
removed from the garments of men.  Teresa was essentially tailor-made.
A good thing too, for the wife of a poor man!

"I wonder what on earth made her many him!"

"Made her--" Teresa's blue eyes widened in astonishment.  "Lady
Cassandra?  Because she loved him, of course."

"Is it of course?  Are there no other reasons for marriage, Miss
Teresa?"

"There ought not to be.  There are not... in Chumley.  But of course we
are not smart."

"No."  Peignton was once more unconscious of offence.  "Still, it's
sometimes difficult to fit the theory to individual cases!  Do you never
look at the couples around you, and wonder how on earth they came to
fancy each other?  I believe many of them wonder themselves before a
year is past.  I can't imagine Lady Cassandra choosing Raynor!"

"Mr Raynor is very nice.  He is a good landlord.  People like him very
much."

"I like him myself.  He's a very excellent specimen of his type.  I'm
not depreciating Raynor as a man--only as a husband for one particular
wife.  She's everything that is vivid and alive, he's everything
that's--slow!  It's a mystery how she took him!"

"Perhaps," Teresa said shrewdly, "he wasn't so slow _then_!  He was in
love with her, you see."

She used the past tense in placid acceptance of an obvious fact;
Peignton accepted it also, his curiosity concerning the Raynors eclipsed
by a tinge of jealousy aroused by the girl's words.  She seemed to
understand a good deal of the behaviour of a man in love!  How did she
come by her knowledge?  He had thought the coast clear, but was it
possible that one of those local fellows--?  Man-like, his interest was
quickened by the suspicion, and Teresa gained in value at the thought of
another man's admiration.  There was unmistakable inflection in the tone
of his next words:

"When _I_ am married, I shall hope to remain in love with my wife!"

Teresa straightened herself, and forced a cough.  She was in terror lest
the shabby groom might overhear the words, and repeat them for the
benefit of the maids in the kitchen.

"Oh, yes, of course!" she said lightly.  "That is so nice...  Then you
_will_ come, and help with the decorations?  One needs a man to reach
the high places.  The Vicar won't allow a single nail."

"Yes, I'll come.  I'd like to!"  Peignton said.  He smiled to himself in
the dusk at the thought of standing before the altar in the old church,
side by side with Teresa Mallison, her hands heaped with white flowers.
He wondered if to her, as to him, would come the thought that there
might come another occasion when they would stand there for another
purpose.  As the horse trotted up to the door of Major Mallison's house,
he was mentally seeing a picture of Teresa in her wedding robes, a gauzy
veil covering her head.

A moment later as they bade each other goodnight, the light through the
opened door fell full upon the face of the real Teresa in her Burberry
and knitted cap, and looking at her, Peignton felt a sudden stab of
disappointment.  The familiar features seemed in mysterious fashion
other than those he had expected.  Faults of which he had been happily
unconscious, obtruded themselves upon his notice.  It was almost as if
he looked upon the face of a stranger.  He walked down the deserted
street pondering the mystery, and like other unimaginative men, failed
to find an explanation.

How could it have been possible that he had dreamed of another face?



CHAPTER THREE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Marten Beverley and his wife Grizel confronted each other across the
breakfast table.  Only the night before they had returned from a
protracted, wedding tour, to take possession of their new home.  Each
was superbly, gloriously happy, but there was a difference in their
happiness.  Martin was not tired of play, but the zest for work was
making itself felt, and he looked forward with joy to the hours at his
desk which would give extra delight to the play to follow.  Grizel faced
work also, but faced it with a grimace.  How in the world to settle
down, and to be practical, and keep house?

"Here beginneth the second volume!" she chanted dolefully across the
breakfast table.  "The happy couple return from their honeymoon, and
settle down! ...  Martin!  I don't _want_ to settle down.  Why should
one?  It's out of date, anyhow, to have a second volume.  Nowadays
people live at full pressure, and get it over in one.  Let's go on being
foolish, and irresponsible, and taking no thought for our dinner.  It's
the only sensible plan.  And it would prevent so much disappointment!
I'm a daisy as a honeymoon wife, but I'm _not_ a typical British
Matron."

"You don't look it!" said Martin, and thrusting his hands in his
pockets, tilted back in his chair and sat staring across the table, his
eyes alight with admiration.  A fire blazed in the grate, but Grizel's
morning robe suggested the height of summer.  It was composed of some
sort of white woollen material, which showed glimpses of a delicate pink
lining.  She wore a boudoir cap too, a concoction of lace and pink
ribbon at once rakish and demure.  Martin was certain that she looked a
duck, what he was uncertain about was the suitability of such plumage
for the mistress of a small _menage_.  Had he not kept house for eight
years with a sister who had visited the larder every morning, and kept a
stern eye on stock-pot and bread-pan, clad in the triggest of blouses,
and the shortest of plain serge skirts!  His eyes twinkled with
amusement.

"Is it your intention to visit the scullery in those garments, may I
ask?"

Grizel tilted in her turn, and returned his stare with an enchanting
smile.  She looked young and fresh, and adorably dainty; an ideal bride
_deluxe_.

"In the first place," she said, dimpling, "what precisely is, and does--
a scullery?"

"A scullery, my child, is an apartment approximate to, and an accessory
of, a kitchen.  It is equipped with a sink, and is designed for the
accommodation of pots and pans, brushes and brooms.  Likewise boots, and
er--uncooked vegetables.  Every mistress of a small establishment visits
the kitchen and scullery at least once in the twenty-four hours."
Grizel considered the subject, thoughtfully rubbing her nose.

"Why vegetables?"

"Why not?"

"_With_ brushes and boots?"

"It seems unsuitable, I grant.  But they do.  I've seen them when I've
been locking up.  On the floor.  In a wooden box.  Carrots and turnips,
and potatoes in their skins."

Grizel straightened herself determinedly, and attacked her breakfast.

"I shall _never_ visit the scullery!" she said firmly.  "It would spoil
my appetite.  Thank you so much for warning me, ducky doo!"

"Not at all.  It was an exhortation.  The cook will expect it of you.
So shall I.  You must kindly remember the sink."

"I take your word for it.  Suppose there is?  What in the name of
fortune has it to do with me?"

"It's your sink, Madam.  Part of your new-found responsibilities.  I
don't wish to harrow your susceptibilities, but it might not be kept
clean.  It is for you to see that it is."

"You should have told me that afore, Laddie!" warbled Grizel
reproachfully.  "Nobody never warned me I should have to poke about
sinks!  And I won't neither.  It's a waste of skilled labour.  Aren't
there lots of sanitary kind of people who make their living by that sort
of work?  Let's have one to look after ours!"

"Every morning?"

"Why not?  Every evening too, if you like."

Martin burst into a roar of laughter, and stretched a hand across the
table.

"You're a goose, Grizel; an impracticable little goose.  I'm afraid we
shall never make a Martha of you."  Then suddenly his face fell, and the
caressing touch strengthened into a grasp.  "You shouldn't have to do
it," he cried sharply.  "It isn't fair.  You've been a miracle of
generosity to me, darling, but when it comes to facing the stern
realities of life, I wonder if I ought to have let you do it."

"You couldn't help yourself," Grizel said calmly.  "I asked you, and you
couldn't for shame say no.  Give me back my hand, dear.  I want it, to
go on eating.  I do love having breakfast with you in our very own
house, and I must make it last as long as possible, as I shan't see you
again for four whole hours. ...  What shall we do after lunch?"

"Er--generally--if I'm in the mood--I go on writing till five o'clock."

Martin spoke with hesitation, as though fearing a reproach, and Grizel
narrowed her eyes, and smiled; a slow, enigmatical smile, but spoke not
one rude word.  She had quite decided that Martin should not be in the
mood!

"On Wednesday and Thursday I'm to be At Home!" was her next irrelevant
remark.  "We put fifteenth and sixteenth on our cards, and now that
we've stayed away a week longer than we intended, the fell date is upon
us before we can breathe.  Do you suppose many people will come?"

Martin's shrug was eloquent.

"Every adult feminine creature who can crawl on two legs from a radius
of five miles around, will crawl to the door.  Hundreds of 'em!  And
with luck three or four males."

"I could find it in my heart to wish it were t'other way round!
However! never say die...  There'll be no time to finish the
drawing-room!  I'll have to receive the surging mobs in the sitting-room
upstairs.  Let's pray the chairs will go round!"

"Couldn't the drawing-room be got ready with a rush?"

"Why in the world should we bother to rush?"

"They'll be disappointed if you don't.  The drawing-room is part of the
show.  The whole neighbourhood is speculating about it now, and
wondering if it's blue or pink.  A house with a closed drawing-room is
like a play without the star.  Do you realise, darling, that they'll
expect to be shown all over the house?"

"Let them expect, if it pleases them to do it, but they _won't_!  Let me
catch anyone trying it on!" cried Grizel sharply, and the gay eyes sent
out a flash of fire.  "My own little home!--it shall _not_ be turned
into a peep-show for a flock of curious women to criticise and quiz.
I'll give them tea, and I'll give them cake, I'll talk pretty, and put
on a tea-gown which will scare 'em into fits, but show them over the
house--_I will not_!  Let's pretend the sitting-room _is_ the
drawing-room, and all will be peace and joy."

"It would leak out afterwards, and they'd feel defrauded.  Half of them
will never enter the house again, darling; you won't care to pursue the
acquaintance, and it will end with an exchange of calls; but you're
rather an exceptional kind of bride, remember, and these good ladies
don't get too much amusement out of life.  It would be kind of you to
give them an afternoon out!  Not, of course, if it bothers _you_, but
surely the maids--"

Grizel crossed the room to the fire, and stretched a small pink,
silk-quilted shoe towards the blaze.

"If you're going to be moral, and appeal to my better feelings, you'd
better be off to your work!  I detest people who air their principles at
breakfast...  For two straws I'll stay in bed, and say I'm over-tired
with my journey, and can't see anyone at all.  I will, too, if you
hector me any more, or I'll show 'em into the dining-room, and have a
sit-down tea, round the big table, with shrimps, and cold ham, and
potted beef..."

"They'd put it down as the latest society craze, and adopt it when they
wished to be smart...  You will be one of the fashion leaders of the
neighbourhood, whether you like it or not, so you'd better take heed to
your ways.  You and Lady Cassandra."

"Humph!"  Grizel's eyes showed their most impish gleam.  "Yes!  I'm
building great hopes on Cassandra.  It's dull keeping all the fun to
oneself.  With her help, if she's the right sort, I'll make things hum!"

Martin told himself that it was waste of time to say any more for the
moment.  Whatever he said, Grizel would contradict; whatever he
proposed, she would reject; and as what she said would have no bearing
whatever on her future conduct, the wisest plan seemed to be to kiss her
several times over, talk delicious nonsense for a couple of minutes, and
then to retire precipitately to his study.  The which he proceeded to
do.

Left to herself, Grizel strolled into the half-furnished drawing-room
and seated herself on a packing box to survey the scene.  Two rooms had
been thrown into one, and the windows lowered, to allow a wide view of
the garden, and so increase the feeling of space.  The furniture was a
selection from the collection of antiques which she had inherited from
her aunt.  Several old cabinets stood ranged along the wall ready to be
put into position, and filled with treasures still unpacked.  In a
corner were rolled the old Persian rugs which would be spread over the
parquet floor.  At the end of five minutes' scrutiny Grizel's quick
brain had put every article into its place, and her quick eye had seen
the completed whole, and found it good.  She decided to get it finished
before lunch, and give Martin a surprise, and rang the bell to summon
the staff to her aid.

The parlourmaid appeared with alacrity.  It was like living in a
novelette, to attend a bride who wore pink and white fineries in the
morning, and looked as if she had never done a hand's turn in her life.
She entered on the day's duties with a refreshing feeling of excitement.

"Please 'Um, the fish-man's called."

"Oh! has he?  I can't attend to him now.  Parsons!--your name is
Parsons, isn't it?--would you kindly remember that my name is not `'Um.'
It is just as easy to say Madam, and sounds far better.  I want you and
Marie, and cook, to come here at once, and I'll tell you what I want
done to this room."

"At--at once, Madam?"

"Certainly, at once."

"Before I clear away?"

"What do you want to clear away?"

"The breakfast things, Madam.  And,--and the fish-man can't wait."

"Tell him to call again then, later on."

"He's on his rounds, Madam.  He only calls the once."

"The fishmonger be--" Grizel coughed audibly, remindful of
responsibilities towards the young.  It was borne in upon her that the
moment which she had dreaded was upon her, and could no longer be
escaped.  The fish-man was waiting, could not wait, could not return; it
therefore behoved the mistress of the household to repair to the kitchen
and interview the cook.  She rose from the packing case, gathered her
skirts around her, and turned to the door.

"Kindly go and tell Mrs Mason that I am coming!"

Mrs Mason was on duty beside the kitchen table.  Having heard from
Parsons' lips a bated account of her lady's splendour, she also was
setting forth on the day's duties with a flavour of excitement.  Spread
out neatly in rows were the remains of last evening's repast.  Cold
fish, cold cutlets, dishevelled chicken, half-eaten sweets.  Grizel, who
had never before been called upon to interview food in _deshabille_,
turned from the sight with a shudder.

"You can use those up in the kitchen."  The cook acquiesced, and
concealed her complaisance.

"And what would you like for the room?"

"In future," said Grizel firmly, "I should like the menu for the day
drawn out, ready to be submitted to me every morning."

"I have never been uzed--" began the cook, then her eyes met those of
her mistress, and to her own amazement she found herself concluding
lamely, "Of course if you wish it, 'Um, I must try! ...  The fish-man is
waiting for horders."

"_Au diable avec le poissonnier_!" ejaculated Grizel _sotto voce_.  She
leant back against the corner of the dresser, the tail of her white robe
folded round in front, displaying the small pink shoes to cook's
appraising eyes.  Her eyes roamed here and there over the kitchen, but
studiously avoided the provisions on the table.  From the region of the
back door sounded a whistle, impatient and peremptory.  The cook glanced
around, glanced back at the pink and white figure standing with head on
one side, leisurely regarding the arrangement of brass on the
mantelpiece, and was goaded into the extreme course of making a
suggestion.

"P'raps... soles!"

"Oh, certainly!" cried Grizel swiftly.  "Soles."

The cook ambled slowly towards the back door.  Returning a moment later,
she folded her arms, and continued tentatively: "The grocer'll be next.
I ordered in the usuals yesterday--but there'll be a few extras.--I
wanted to ask, 'Um, if you allowed lard?"

"Madam," corrected Grizel sweetly, and pursed her lips, as though in
deliberation.  To herself she was declaiming desperately: "Now may the
powers preserve me, ... one slip, and I am undid!  What on earth does
she mean by cornering me like this?  I must temporise, and lure her on."
...  She stroked her nose, and said judicially:

"Of course--it depends!"

"Most ladies do," affirmed the cook.  "If they're particular.  It's
difficult to get it the same with dripping."

Grizel had a flash of inspiration.  Lard was the superlative, dripping
the positive; naturally, then, all plain cooks angled for the former,
and all British Matrons insisted on the latter.  She put on a severe air
and said firmly:

"Not if your pans are perfectly clean!" and was so overjoyed at her own
aptness, that she was ready to allow anything under the sun.
Nevertheless, the detective instinct having been born in her heart, she
was resolved, as she mentally phrased it, to track lard to the death.

Cook was staring open-eyed, a faint misgiving mingled with the former
complaisance.  When a mistress began talking of keeping pans clean, she
was not so green as had been expected!  Her lips set in obstinate
fashion.

"Some ladies," she said, "are so fussy about the colour.  You can't help
getting it darker with dripping."

Grizel felt hopelessly that she had lost the scent.  It was a desperate
position, face to face with her enemy, defenceless, yet aware that an
instant's failure must lead to wholesale debacle.  "I can't tackle her
alone," she told herself desperately.  "I must--I must have a
confederate!" and throwing principle to the winds, in a flash of thought
she created a fictitious Emily, and wove around her a suitable family
history.  Faithful servant, perfect cook, expert dripping-er, rent by
marriage from a sorrowing mistress, now slumbering in a village grave!
With a voice imbued with the sacredness of the remembrance, she
pronounced firmly: "Emily did!  She _always_ got it white."

"Oh, _rolled_!" cried the cook.  The corners of her lips gave a slight
expressive twitch before she added in automatic fashion.  "Yes, 'Um--
Madam,--I quite understand."  She crossed the floor and took down a
slate from its nail, while Grizel made a mental note.  "Lard.--Its Use
and Abuse.--Differentiate from dripping.--Why darker?  Under what
circumstances should it be forbidden or allowed?"

"Soles," said the cook firmly.  "And soup?"

"Oh, certainly.  Certainly soup.  Mr Beverley likes quite a simple
dinner--soup, fish, an entree, one solid course, sweets--lots of cream,
please! and dessert.  See that there is always plenty of fruit.  And of
course, salad.  Did I say savories?  Of course you'll arrange all that.
That is all for to-day?  I think.  To-morrow you will have the menu
ready."

The cook, who was a superior plain cook, reflected that she would
require a "rise," if they expected a party dinner every night.  If
Grizel had been attired in an ordinary coat and skirt she would have
rebelled forthwith, but the sheer glamour of pink and white kept her
dumb.

"Soles," she repeated stolidly.  "And soup.  What kind of soup?"

"_Clear_!" said Grizel, and felt a glow of triumph.  Really and truly
she had done better than she had expected.  So well that it seemed
diplomatic to beat a retreat before she fell from grace.  She hitched
her skirts still further, and stepped daintily towards the door, but
cook cut short her retreat.

"Entree, you said, Ma'am.  What kind of entree?  And there's lunch.  And
breakfast.  To-morrow's breakfast.  Would it be bacon?"

Grizel waved an impatient hand.

"Bacon certainly.  And er--omelette!  Kidneys.  Cold dishes.  The usual
things one _does_ have for breakfast.  And lunch at one.  A hot dish,
please, and several cold, and some sweets.  And always fruit.  Plenty of
fruit.  That will do nicely for to-day, Mrs Mason.  We've discussed
everything, I think."  She turned a beneficent smile upon the bewildered
face.  "And I'm sure," she added daringly, "you'll manage splendidly
with dripping!"

In the dining-room Parsons was still busy clearing away.  Upstairs Marie
the maid was unpacking endless boxes of clothes, and hanging them up in
a spare room fitted to do duty as an immense wardrobe.  At the end of a
passage stood the baize door which gave entrance to Martin's sanctum.
Grizel approached it stealthily, and pressed her lips to the keyhole.

"Martin!"

A voice from within answered with would-be sternness:

"Go away!"

"Martin...  I'm sorry!  Just _one_ moment...  Something I _must_ ask
you.--Most important..."

"Go on, then...  What is it?"

"_What--Is--Lard_?"

The door flew open, and Martin stood laughing on the threshold.

"You goose!  What on earth are you talking about?"

"That's just it.  I don't know.  And how on earth am I to find out!
I've been interviewing cook, and she asked if I allowed it.  Do I, or
don't I, and why should I not, and for goodness' sake _how_ does it
differ from dripping?  I prevaricated, and looked economical, and
middle-aged.  I saw my face in the dish covers, and it aged me horribly.
I thought I'd better find out at once."

"Yes, but you mustn't come running to me for such information.  I've got
to buy the lard, remember, and I shan't be able to afford it, if I'm
interrupted.  For all you know I might have been killing my heroine..."

"Then she'd have a reprieve, and I'd have done a good deed.  You can't
seriously have begun yet, and this is so deadly important.  You might
spare five minutes to instruct your poor wife."

Grizel perched herself on the corner of the table, and tilted the
boudoir cap at a beguiling angle.  Martin stood with his back to the
fire and adopted a professorial air.

"Lard," he said sententiously, "is a substance compounded of a whitey
grease, contained for the purposes of trade in balloons or bladders of
skins--"

Grizel's face showed a network of horrified lines.

"How exceedingly disagreeable!  I shall certainly _not_ allow it...  And
what is dripping?"

"Dripping is, er--brown!  So called because it drips from the meat in
the process of cooking.  It is inferior to lard, and aspires to no
bladder, but lives in odd receptacles, such as jam jars.  It is supposed
to supply an unconquerable temptation to a plain cook, and there are
fiends in the shape of men, who are said to spend their life tempting
cooks to sell the dripping.  Katrine used to see dripping in the eye of
every unknown man who opened the gate.  I never heard her make any
allegations about lard.  Does that distinction afford you any
illumination?"

Grizel sighed, and turned to the door with an air of resignation.

"Well, good-bye, my loved one!  Be very good to me, for you won't have
me long.  If I've got to order meals, I shall never be able to eat them.
I foresee that.  I never heard so much about grease in my life.  Is
there nothing decent one could use instead?"

Martin hesitated.

"I believe--sometimes--butter!"

Grizel waved a triumphant hand.

"Of course!  Butter!  Why couldn't you have said that before?  Nice,
clean, fresh butter.  I'll tell her I allow _nothing_ else.  What a fuss
over nothing! ...  Martin, you're wearing a green tie.  I've never seen
you in green before...  Darling! you're adorable in green..."



CHAPTER FOUR.

GRIZEL AT HOME.

It was the afternoon of Grizel Beverley's first "At Home" celebration.
The drawing-room had been made ready for the occasion with the aid of
what seemed to Martin a very army of workmen, and, as Grizel pointed out
triumphantly, it looked as if it had been lived in for generations.  Not
a single new object marred the mellowed perfection of the whole.  Old
cabinets stood outlined against white walls, the floor was bare of the
superfluity of little tables and flower-stands which characterise so
many bride's apartments; with one striking exception the general effect
was austere in tone.  The exception was found in a deep recess, on one
side of the fire-place, the walls of which were hung with a gorgeous
Chinese embroidery which made a feast of colour against the surrounding
white and brown, and proclaimed to an understanding eye that the
mistress of the house had appropriated the favoured niche for her own
use.

Against the wall stood a huge old sofa, showing delicate touches of
brass on the carved woodwork, and piled with a profusion of cushions to
match the tapestries in tone.  There was a table also of carved Chinese
wood, littered with books, and a surprising number of odds and ends
considering the very short period in which it had been in use; a bureau
of dull red lacquer, littered to match, and a great blue enamel bowl
containing a few, but only a few, spring flowers.

When Grizel did a thing at all she did it thoroughly, and when the
drawing-room was finished to a thread, she herself dressed to match it
in a cream lace robe of fallacious simplicity, caught together with a
clasp of turquoise and diamonds, and a blue snood tied about her head.
When the crucial moment arrived, she intended to seat herself
sultana-like on her couch and burst in full splendour upon the admiring
throngs.  Martin was convinced that no living thing could fail to be
subjugated by that gown, but he was equally convinced that Chumley would
disapprove of the snood, which it would call a bandage, and consider
theatrical and out of place.  He knew his business better than to say
so, however, and was at the moment abundantly occupied in trying to lure
his wife from the window, where she had taken up her position,
field-glasses in hand, to watch the approach of the first group of
visitors up the lane leading to the gate.

"The Campbells are coming.  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Three of 'em.  One stout
person in green, one thin person in black, one girl with large feet.
Girl with feet has fair hair.  Who do you know, Martin, with fair hair
and large feet?"

"Dozens of 'em."  Martin threw a quick look over his wife's shoulder and
recognised the group at a glance.  "Mrs Mallison, wife of Major
Mallison, retired Army man--the Seaforths.  Eldest daughter Mary, dull
and domestic.  Second daughter Teresa, sporting.  They are quite near
the gate now, dearest.  Don't, please, let them see..."

Grizel put down the field-glasses, crossed to the couch, and seated
herself thereon in an attitude of prunes and prisms propriety.  The bell
rang, and the three ladies were shown into the room.  There was an air
of diffidence, almost of shyness in their demeanour, for this was not an
ordinary afternoon call, upon an ordinary bride.  This bride had been a
well-known personage in society, her marriage had been a subject of
almost international interest, and the fleeting glimpses which Chumley
had had of her, on previous visits to Martin's sister Katrine, had
confirmed all that rumour had to say touching the puzzling variability
of her nature.  It was impossible for these first callers to restrain a
thrill of nervousness as to the nature of the reception before them.
When the door opened to give a momentary glimpse of a white figure
sitting outlined against a background of Oriental splendour, the
nervousness deepened still more.  They advanced tentatively, cautious of
the polished floor, so tentatively that Grizel met them more than
half-way, sailing gracefully forward with an infinity of assurance which
had the unexpected result of daunting them still further.  They were
requested to sit down; they sat down, and stared...

"So good of you to come to see me!  You are my very first callers."

"I trust--not _too_ early."  Mrs Mallison felt a pang of disquietude.
"We were so anxious to meet you.  You are feeling quite settled down, I
hope.  How do you like Chumley?"

"Oh, thank you, _so_ much!  I adore everything.  You do, don't you, when
you are newly married?"

Mrs Mallison and her eldest daughter looked indulgent, but shocked.  It
was quite natural, quite desirable indeed that a bride should entertain
such sentiments, but to express them so openly and to absolute
strangers, savoured almost of indelicacy.  Teresa was occupied in taking
in the details of Grizel's costume, in condemning the blue snood, and
determining to try the effect on her own hair immediately on her return
home.  She found time, however, to give a quick glance at Martin as
Grizel made her pronouncement, and noted the quiver of feeling which
passed over his face.  The understanding which comes of fellow-feeling
revealed the meaning of that quiver.  She understood why the man lowered
his eyes and gave no glance of response.  He was afraid that he might
reveal too much!

After that, other visitors arrived quick and fast.  Bells rang, doors
were opened, and in twos and threes the representatives of Chumley
society were announced, and made their bow.  They had come together for
the sake of companionships or the sake also of being able to compare
notes on the way home.  They all wore their new spring costumes, and
looked--the majority at least--personable enough, yet Martin realised
with mingled pain and pride the gulf of difference which yawned between
them and his wife.  They were practical, commonplace women, leading
practical, commonplace lives; to call them ill-bred or uncultivated
would have been untrue.  They came of good stock, had cultivated their
brains and turned them to account, but there was one side of their
nature which had not been developed, and that was the side which, in
Grizel's set, had been considered all-important.  They had been brought
up to discount appearances, and to view with suspicion any person of
marked personal charm.  They worshipped the god of convention, and its
priestess Mrs Grundy.  Grizel considered that a woman's first duty was
to charm, and her second,--if a second remained, worth speaking about,--
to defy convention, and be a law unto oneself.

Seated in her niche of glowing colour, she looked as much out of place
as an orchid in a field of wild flowers, and Martin watching the face of
each new-comer, saw reflected upon it the same surprise, the same
disapproval, the same unease.  He realised that Chumley was a little
shocked by the unconventionality of the drawing-room, and still more by
the unconventionality of the bride herself.  In the last ten years of
his life he had remained supremely indifferent of what his neighbours
might say or think, but--these good women would be Grizel's neighbours,
out of love for himself she had cast her lot among them; he was almost
painfully anxious that she should have such small compensations as would
result from liking, and being liked in return.  Surely among them all
must be found some congenial spirit!

"And are you happily settled with your maids, Mrs Beverley?" enquired
Mrs Ritchards, wife of a City lawyer, who might almost be called
retired, since he went up to town only two or three times a week.  Mrs
Ritchards had two subjects of conversation--her garden, and her
servants, and had already unsuccessfully tackled the bride on the former
topic.  To her relief the second venture proved a decided draw, for
Grizel leant her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and
puckered her face into a network of lines.

"Oh, yes, do let's talk about servants!  I'm so interested.  I'm making
all sorts of horrible discoveries.  My cook wants to go out!  A night
out every week.  She told me so to-day.  She said she'd always been used
to it.  I said if it came to that, I'd always been used to having my
dinner.  I never knew that cooks _expected_ to go out!  Who is to cook
one's dinner if the cook goes out?  She said she was accustomed to
prepare a stew, and cold shapes.  `Cold Shapes'!"  Grizel's voice
dropped to a thrilling note, she lifted her chin, her outstretched
fingers curved and wriggled in expressive distaste.  "_Cold Shapes_!
Gruesome sound!  It makes one think of the Morgue!"

A shudder passed through the room, followed by a diffident laugh.
Teresa Mallison and a few of the younger women giggled, the elders
forbore on principle to smile at such an allusion, and the Vicar's wife
entered on a forbearing explanation.

"They are human creatures like ourselves, Mrs Beverley, and the fire is
so trying!  I encourage my cook to go out, as a matter of health.  You
are not limited to shapes, of course.  There are so many nice cold
sweets."

Grizel shook her head.  "Grace has not been given to me to eat cold
sweets.  Not on _those_ nights!  I should have a carnal craving for
omelettes.  We must keep two cooks!"  Her little nod waved aside the
subject as settled and done with, and the matrons of Chumley exchanged
stealthy glances of condemnation.  Mrs Ritchards, however, warmed to
the attack.

"Why not a kitchen-maid, who could make herself useful upstairs in the
morning?  There is a young girl in my daughter's Sunday School Class who
might suit you.  Very respectable, but short.  Of course, if she were
expected to wait when the housemaid is out, that might be an objection."

She paused enquiringly, and Grizel's face fell.

"The parlourmaid too!  Do they _all_ go out?  Then how can one possibly
be fed?  There will be nothing for it, Martin, but to go up to town two
nights a week."  The suggestion would appear to have had a cheering
effect, for she flashed once more into smiles, looking round the circle
of watching faces with eyes a-sparkle with mischief.  "It's such fun
trying to keep house when one knows nothing whatever about it!  Like
starting out on a voyage of adventure!  I have the most thrilling
experiences..."

Mrs Ritchards smiled with friendly encouragement.

"You will find it much more interesting when you _do_ understand!  I
always say that to run a household, economically and well, is as
satisfactory work as a woman need ask.  It's like everything else, Mrs
Beverley, the more you study it, the more interesting it becomes.  I
have been at it for years, and I pride myself that there is very little
that I do not know."

"Ah!" cried Grizel deeply.  She leant her elbow on her knee and bent
forward, her expression one of breathless eagerness.  "Then you are the
very person I've been looking for!  You can tell me something I've been
dying to know...  What is your opinion about Lard?"

Mrs Ritchards gasped, the other listeners gasped also.  Martin choked,
turned the choke into a cough, and became suddenly engrossed in the
china on the mantelpiece.

"Lard!  Lard!"  Mrs Ritchards struggled with the inevitable disability
to define a well-known article.  "But surely... surely...  In what
respect did you want my opinion?"

"About allowing it, of course, and if one should.  Cook asked if I did,
and it seemed such a complex question, and there was an implication
about dripping--and the colour of something,--dark versus light.  I got
hopelessly confused!"

Mrs Ritchards did not allow lard.  "It's a question of sufficient
heat," she maintained.  "If they get the dripping hot enough, it does
perfectly well.  It must boil till you see a blue smoke..."

Grizel seized an ivory tablet, and made a hurried note.  "Till you see a
blue smoke...!  I'll bring that in to-morrow, and confound her with my
knowledge.  Thank you so much.  That's quite a relief."  She pushed
aside the tablet, straightened her back and looked around with a bright,
challenging glance.  The subject of lard was exhausted, and she was
ready to pass on to pastures new.

"Are you fond of games, Mrs Beverley?"  Teresa asked, eager to secure
another member for her various clubs, and feeling that the moment was a
convenient one for introducing the subject.  "We have a good tennis
club, and ladies can play golf every day but Saturday, on the Links.  It
would be so nice if you would join.  We have tea every afternoon.  The
members take it in turns to provide the cakes."

"How nice!" cried Grizel with a gush.  "I adore cakes.  I'll join
certainly, if you'll promise I need never play.  It bores me so to run
about after balls.  I never can catch them, and I don't want to, so why
should I try?  Really"--she dropped her chin sententiously--"it's a
waste of time!"

The Vicar's wife saw _her_ opportunity, and grasped it.

"I agree with you, Mrs Beverley.  The tendency of the age is to spend
far too much time over games.  My husband considers that it is a
national danger.  There are so many other things better worth doing!"

"Oh, yes," cried Grizel promptly.  "There's bridge."  The strain of the
conversation was beginning to tell, and she told herself impatiently
that she would _not_ be "preached."

"Bridge is so comfy; you can sit still, and have a cushion to your back,
and smoke, and talk between the deals.  It's quite a good way of getting
through the afternoon.  What stakes do you play for here?"

The women in the company who played for money looked at the Vicar's wife
and were silent.  Those who did not, felt virtuous, and looked it.

"At our house we make a point of playing for love," Mrs Ritchards
announced.  "My husband disapproves of anything in the nature of
gambling.  Of course, when one has young people coming in and out, there
_is_ a responsibility.  Personally I should object very strongly to
taking another person's money.  Don't you feel an awkwardness, Mrs
Beverley--from your own guests?"

"Not a bit.  I love it!" declared Grizel naughtily.  "But I hate to
lose.  I hope someone will be wicked enough to play for money with me.
I suppose there _are_ some wicked people in the neighbourhood?"

"They do at the Court.  I go up there sometimes.  Lady Cassandra loves
bridge," Teresa said with a pride which overcame shyness.  Was she not
the only girl in Chumley who could boast of anything like intimacy with
the big house?  She watched her hostess' face for a brightening of
interest, and felt aggrieved when it failed to appear.

"That's good.  I'm glad there's someone.  I must ask her about it," said
Grizel nonchalantly, taking a future acquaintance for granted with a
calmness which at once irritated and impressed her hearer.  At the
bottom of her heart Teresa felt the birth of a jealous dread; and found
herself hoping that Cassandra would not call, would at any rate delay
doing so for months to come, as was her custom with Chumley
acquaintances.  And then once again the door was thrown open, and with
an accent of satisfaction the parlourmaid announced--Lady Cassandra
Raynor.

She had come already!  On the very first day on which Mrs Beverley was
at home,--as quickly, as eagerly, as the humblest among them!  Every
woman in the room felt the same sense of amaze, the same rankling
remembrance of the different manner in which she herself had been
treated.  Their eyes turned as on one pivot towards the door.

Cassandra entered, a vision of delight in grey velvet and chinchilla
furs, her face with its delicately vivid bloom half hidden by the latest
eccentricity in hats.  Her dress was very tight, her hat was very large;
from an artistic point of view the lines of both were abominable, but
Cassandra considered them ravishing, and, being one of the happy people
who look well despite their clothes, succeeded in mesmerising her
audience into a like belief.  She advanced, walking with short, mincing
footsteps, while her eyes swept the room.  Grizel rose from the sofa to
greet her, and a glance was exchanged between them, a swift, appraising
glance.  The lookers-on heard the exchange of a few society phrases,
pronounced, it appeared to them, with an unnecessary amount of "gush,"
but in the moment in which the two hands clasped, and the hazel eyes
looked into the blue, the two women realised that for them there need be
no intermediate stage; they were not strangers, they were already
friends.

Martin came forward and shook hands in his turn, and Cassandra seated
herself, bending her head in a smiling greeting, intended to embrace the
whole room.  She had timed her visit in the hope that most of the guests
would be ready to depart, and noticed with satisfaction the empty
teacups, but every woman in the room with one exception, was at that
moment forming a mental resolution to stay and listen to what passed
between this interesting pair.

"Your house looks so beautifully settled, Mrs Beverley.  I hope you
haven't been bored over the upset.  It's so impossible to get things
done in the country!"

"Oh, thanks.  I'm not on speaking terms with a workman in the
neighbourhood, but I _did_ get things done as I wished!  I always do.
We parted on the worst of terms, and I gave them a heart-to-heart talk,
and told them I hoped the Germans would come soon, and drill them into
something like intelligence.  It would really be an admirable thing for
the country!"

The Vicar's wife arose with heavy dignity.  With a whole parish waiting
on her ministrations she had no time to waste listening to such
nonsense.  Unpatriotic into the bargain.  Yet despite her disapproval,
there was an indefinable something in the bride's personality which
touched her heart.  Perhaps it was the radiant happiness of her mien,
perhaps it was that deep musical note which at times softened her voice,
suggesting depths below the surface; perhaps it was simply her fragility
and charm.  Hannah Evans did not trouble to analyse her feelings, she
merely held out a plump gloved hand, and smiled kindly into Grizel's
face.

"I must be running away, Mrs Beverley.  My husband is hoping to call
upon you very soon.  This afternoon he has a class for confirmation.  I
must hurry home to give him tea.  He comes in so tired.  Good afternoon.
So pleased to welcome you among us!  I hope we may often meet."

Her voice rang true, there was a kindliness written on the large, plain
face to which Grizel's heart made instant response.  She brought her own
left hand to join the right, clasping the grey glove with an
affectionate pressure, and smiled back the while with a winsome
friendliness.  There was silence in the room while the onlookers looked
with critical eyes at the two figures, so typical of youth and age.  The
bulky woman, with her jet bonnet and capacious black silk coat, the
nymph-like form of the bride.  Every ear listened for the response.

"Oh, you will; indeed you will!  I shall often be running over to the
Vicarage to see you."

"That will be very nice."  Mrs Evans smiled complacently.  "I hope you
will.  And I must not forget--I made a note to ask you before I left.--
It would give us great pleasure if you could see your way to take up a
little work.  We are sadly in need of helpers.  I was going to ask if
you would join our Mothers' Meeting?"

"Oh, give me time!" cried Grizel reproachfully.  "Give me time!"

In answer to after reprisals she justified herself by the assertion that
she had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and in absolute good faith.
Besides, what else could the old thing have meant?  And even if she
didn't, why need the silly creatures be shocked?  She did not attempt to
deny that they were shocked, the flutter of dismay had indeed been so
real a thing as to obtrude itself on ears, as well as eyes.  Gasps of
astonishment, of horror, of dismay, sounded to right and left; rustling
of silk; hasty, inoperative coughs.  Grizel still saw in remembrance the
petrifaction on the large kind face looking down into her own, the
scarlet mounting swiftly into Teresa's cheeks.  Only one person laughed,
and that laugh had had the effect of heightening the general
condemnation.  It was Cassandra Raynor who laughed.



CHAPTER FIVE.

"TWO OF A KIND."

Mrs Evans's departure gave the start to what was virtually a general
stampede.  As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined
her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home.
Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated
hen.  Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid.  Grizel
beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no
staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one
followed her leader.  In three minutes Cassandra alone was left, and
Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity
to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.

Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in
eloquent silence.  Cassandra's eyes were dancing, her cheeks were
flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle
perturbed.  "Now I've been and gone and done it!"

"You have indeed!"  Cassandra laughed.  It was delightful to be able to
laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman.
There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone.  "How _could you_
say it?"

"Because I thought she meant it,--honestly I did, for the first second,
and I always act on the first second.  And why need the silly things be
shocked?  They've all got dozens.  What _is_ the old Meeting, anyway?"

"I think it's...  Mothers!" volunteered Cassandra illuminatingly.  "Poor
ones.  They have plain sewing and coal clubs.  I subscribe.  You were
invited to join the Committee.  In the parish room.  They--I believe
they cut out the plain clothes."

"Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!" cried Grizel, and gave a
complacent pat to her lace gown.  "I'll subscribe too, and stay at home,
but I'll apologise to the dear old thing.  She meant to be kind, and I'm
sorry I shocked her.  I'm going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a
nice talk, and shock each other comfortably.  Have _you_ any children?"

"I have a son," said Cassandra.  The brilliance of her smile faded as
she spoke.  She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured
to keep her voice unchanged.  "He is nine years old.  At a preparatory
school.  Quite a big person."

Grizel also ceased to smile.  There was an expression akin to reverence
in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other's face.  The deep note was
in her voice.

"You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten!  Old
enough to be a companion,--to talk with you, and to understand.  How
wonderful it must be!"

There was a moment of silence during which Cassandra's thoughts flew
back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to
a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced
before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled
face.  She smiled with stiff lips.

"He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory.  You must
see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I'm afraid he
may bore you.  It is not, of course, a responsive age."

"It will come!  It will come!  It's storing up.  These undemonstrative
natures are the richest deep down," Grizel said softly.

The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but
it was enough.  Cassandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had
spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately
understood.

Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.

"Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again.  Cricket now!
It's the deadliest game.  One goes to Lord's for the frocks, and to meet
friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the
air at the end.  I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine.
Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I'd ten sons on
the winning side.  But how on earth they _can_ enjoy that everlasting
running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour
after hour, day after day!"  She shrugged expressively.  "Well!  I never
_look_."

"It's worse when they talk about it!"  Cassandra said.  "When my boy is
at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal.  I
am hopelessly out in the cold.  I suppose it will grow worse as time
goes on, and more masculine tastes develop."

Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.

"Do you know that's a subject which is exercising me very much!  All my
life until now I've lived with women, and been conversationally on my
own ground, and now there's Martin!  We've got to have meals together,
and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and
it's a big proposition.  Suppose he gets bored?  Suppose _I_ get bored?
At present it's such delight just to be together, that it doesn't matter
what we say.  I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient,
and he could prose about golf, and I'd murmur sympathetically in the
pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear
he was, but"--she put down her cup--"I'm not a child; I _know_ that that
stage must pass!  It may be just as sweet to be together--it may be
sweeter, but the novelty will pass...  Tell me!" she bent forward,
gazing in Cassandra's face.  "How soon does it pass?"

Again Cassandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at
the answering smile.

"The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon.  I
was very young when I married.  We were a big family at home, and very
hard up.  It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the
schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress
of the Court.  I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I
could ever get _blase_."

"But you did?"

"Oh, yes."

"How soon?"

"Very soon, I'm afraid.  Incredibly soon."

Grizel tossed her head.

"I am never _blase_.  It's impossible that I ever could be.  Life
interests me too much.  The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it
becomes.  But I'm sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe
so implicitly in the `happy-ever-after' theory, that they take no
trouble to make it come true.  I'm twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and
I've no illusions on the point.  My husband and I are gloriously happy,
but I know we shan't go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep
it up."

"I!  Why not _we_?  Surely it's a mutual affair?"

"Yes, but bless 'em! men are _not_ adaptive, and most of them are so
busy making the bread and butter, and too tired when that's over, to
bother about anything more!  It's the women who have to do the fitting
in.  That brings us back to where we started.  I'm trying to think
ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to
talk sense!"

They both laughed, but Cassandra was conscious of a pricking of
conscience.  It had never occurred to her to "work hard" to preserve her
husband's love.  Like many another woman she had taken for granted that
once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved
over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control.  How
could one "prepare" against such a contingency?

"I'm not at all sure that I agree with you," she said restlessly.  "The
`happy-ever-after' theory has its drawbacks, but it's very sweet while
it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start.  To have to work
hard, to `struggle' for one's husband's love!"

"Well, why not?  Is there _any_ big thing in life which one gains, or
keeps without a fight?  And this is the biggest of all, and the most
fragile and easily lost.  Think! among all your friends how many could
come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn't be thankful
to part from at the end?  I don't say you stop caring for them, but
you've had enough!  You say to yourself: `Emmeline is an angel, but that
giggle of hers drives me daft.  Thank the gods she's leaving to-day!' or
`Emmeline's a perfect dear, I'm devoted to her, but _have_ you noticed
the way she wriggles her nose?  It's got on my nerves to such an extent
that I can't bear it an hour longer.'  And you stand on the platform and
wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs
away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and
feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ...  You know it's true!"

"Oh!" laughed Cassandra, "don't talk of a month.  A week is enough for
me.  Less than a week!"

"Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage?  There's no magic in a
few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each
other's faults.  It's the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when
they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years,
and to be decently civil until the end.  It's worth any amount of effort
to accomplish.  I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal...
we have failings; and as we grow older they'll grow worse.  At present
we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened.
I know.  I've seen.  I've watched.  I've taken warning.  I'm going to
prepare myself in advance."

"What, _par exemple_, are you going to do?"

"Study the brute!  Study his _fads_.  Join the golf club, for one thing,
and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable
afternoons.  I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots,
and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground.
If we'd been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall
very soon pick up all that is necessary!"

"Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your
husband?  You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and
then you could go to the links together in the afternoons.  If you are
determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly.
He'd be so pleased!"

"I'm not so sure," Grizel said shrewdly.  "I'm his wife and he adores
me, but he'd rather play golf with a boring man with a good handicap,
and come home to find me sitting on a sofa looking pretty and fluffy,
ready to acclaim his exploits, and listen to volumes about every hole,
and the marvellous way in which he cleeked his tee off the bogie.  Well!
what is it?  Don't you call it a bogie?"  She laughed herself, in
sympathy with the other's merriment, and ended with an involuntary:
"Lady Cassandra!  I'm so _glad_ you came.  Do let us often laugh
together!  I have such a comfortable feeling that you won't be shocked
at anything I say."

"No one ever shocks me, except myself.  You don't know how glad I shall
be.  I'm really rather a lonely person, though I've lived here so long.
It seems extraordinary to have had this intimate conversation with you
on our very first meeting.  I wouldn't dream of discussing such matters
with any other woman in the neighbourhood."

"Of course not.  You don't know anyone else so well.  We _are_
intimates, so what's the use of hedging?"

"I don't want to hedge.  I'm only too thankful to know it.  It's not
healthy to live so much alone.  One grows introspective.  These last
years I've been growing more and more absorbed in Cassandra Raynor."

"Well! she _is_ attractive, isn't she?  I'm going to do exactly the
same.  I felt it in my bones the moment you entered the room.  You felt
it too!  I saw the little spark leap to your eyes."

"It did.  It's quite true, but I ought to warn you that being associated
with me, won't make you any more popular in Chumley.  Chumley doesn't--
approve of me!  I expect you are sensitive enough to atmospheres to have
grasped that fact for yourself?"

"I did.  Yes.  But why?"

"Oh, many reasons.  I dress fashionably.  I hate parish work.  I don't
go to `teas,' or give them in return.  I'm lazy about calls.  I'm not
interested in the people, and I can't pretend."

"Oh, but I shall be interested.  I always am.  I love all those dear old
things in their dolmans and black silks.  They are types of the
old-fashioned women, whom I've read about, but never known.  I shall
love studying them, and hearing their views, and shocking them by
telling them mine in return.  They'll love being shocked--all prim old
ladies love it.  They're all walking home now, buzzing over my _faux
pas_, and feeling as perked up as if they'd been to the theatre.  They
think they are grieved, but they have really enjoyed themselves
immensely.  I lived with a very old great-aunt before my marriage, so
I'm an expert in old ladies."

Cassandra assented absently.  She was not interested in old ladies, but
she was interested in watching Grizel as she talked.  Her practised eye
took in every detail of her appearance, and every detail was right.  She
studied her features, her expression, the waves of her soft fair hair,
the swiftly moving hands, and sat smiling, appearing to listen, while
her thoughts raced ahead, planning future meetings, seeing herself
blessed with a friend who would fill the empty gap.

"I shall be jealous of the old ladies if you give them too much of your
company!" she said, with a charming smile which accentuated the flattery
of the remark.  Grizel smiled back with a little nod of acknowledgment,
and Cassandra lifted her muff as if preparing to depart, asking casually
the while:

"Have you good news of your sister-in-law, Miss Beverley?  I knew her
slightly, and admired her a great deal.  She went to India, I think?"

Grizel's eyes danced with animation.

"She did.  Yes.  To visit a friend.  We saw her off at Marseilles, my
husband and I, and a fortnight later we were sitting in a cafe, drinking
coffee, and flirting outrageously, when we suddenly saw the name of the
ship on a poster!  It had been in a collision in the Indian Ocean; and
the passengers had to take to the boats.  If another ship had not come
to the rescue, they might all have been drowned."

"What a terrible experience!  How sad for the poor girl, just when she
was starting for such a delightful visit!"

"Not at all sad.  Not at all.  A very good thing," said Grizel
unexpectedly.  "Katrine had been wading through trivialities all her
life; a big experience was just what she needed.  Besides--as a matter
of fact... there was a _Man_!"

"Aha!" cried Cassandra, immediately fired with feminine interest.  "On
the ship?"

"Pre-cisely!  Fastening her into life-belts, bidding her a tragic adieu,
waving a gallant hand from the sinking prow."

"Just so.  I understand!  And when is the wedding to be?"

Grizel's face lengthened in dismay.

"Goodness me--I haven't _told_ you, have I?  No one is to know for a
couple of months.  How on earth did you guess?  _Please_ don't speak of
it to a soul.  You see, it's a trifle awkward, because as a matter of
fact the real man,--it wasn't the real man,--I mean it _was_ the real
man really, only he pretended--"

Cassandra held up a protesting hand.

"I think you'd better leave it alone!  You didn't tell me anything; I
guessed, but I'll promise to forget forthwith, and be agreeably
surprised when I hear the news a few months hence.  _Don't_ tell me any
names!"

Before Grizel could reply the whizz of an electric bell sounded through
the house, and both women involuntarily groaned, foreseeing an end to
their _tete-a-tete_, but the next moment Grizel's eyes brightened.

"It's a _man_!" she whispered ecstatically.  "It's a man.  I can hear
his dear boots!  My first man caller!  Oh joy!  Oh rapture!"

"Captain Peignton."

Dane entered, his eyes narrowed in his usual, short-sighted fashion.
Cassandra noticed that he threw a quick glance round the room and
guessed, what was indeed the truth, that he had hoped to meet Teresa
Mallison, and have an opportunity of escorting her home.  When he caught
sight of herself, his face showed a ripple of feeling that came and went
before she could decipher its meaning.  Then he sat down, and made
conversation to Grizel, and was smiled at in return with a display of
dimples which seemed to have sprung into existence for his benefit.
Certainly the old ladies had not been treated to them; even Cassandra
herself had come off second best, for Grizel was essentially a man's
woman, who awoke to her highest self in the presence of the opposite
sex.  It was easy to see that the present visitor was making a
favourable impression, and that Grizel was alive to the charm which
Cassandra had found it so difficult to define.

Looking on in silence during the first moments of conversation,
Cassandra was not so sure that Peignton reciprocated his hostess's
approval.  Her light flow of conversation seemed to disconcert rather
than put him at his ease, his answers came with difficulty, his eyes had
none of their usual brightness.  Well! the man who could fall in love
with Teresa Mallison would hardly be likely to appreciate Grizel
Beverley.  Cassandra made up her mind to take her departure, but some
minutes elapsed before she really rose, and then to her surprise
Peignton also made his farewells, and accompanied her to the door.
Outside, the car stood waiting, and as he helped her into it and held
out his hand in farewell, his face in the fading light looked pale and
tired, and Cassandra spoke on a quick impulse:

"Can I give you a lift?  It will be just as quick to go round by the
cross roads.  Unless you prefer to walk..."

"Thank you, I'd be grateful.  I've had a heavy day!"

He seated himself beside her, and the car sped smoothly down the narrow
road.  For some moments neither spoke, but Cassandra was conscious of a
pleasurable tingling of excitement.  She had had so many lonely drives
seated in solitary state among the luxurious fitments of her Rolls
Royce, that the presence of a companion was in itself an agreeable
novelty.  Besides, as she reminded herself, she had a double reason in
being interested in Dane Peignton, since both for Bernard's sake and
Teresa's it was her duty to cultivate the friendship.  She turned
towards him, met the brown eyes, and smiled involuntarily.  They were
_nice_ eyes!

"Well! what do you think of the bride?"

"Just what I was going to ask you!"

"I agree with Teresa.  She is adorable!"

The mention of Teresa aroused no flicker in his face.  His brows
contracted in consideration.

"Is she?  I'm not so sure.  She does not strike me as a woman of very
deep feeling."

"You would not say that, if you had heard her talking before you came
in!"

"Wouldn't I?  That's interesting.  What was she talking about?"

"Oh!"  The blood mounted into Cassandra's cheeks, she felt a sudden
unaccountable shyness.  "Marriage!  The relationship of husband and
wives--that sort of thing."

Peignton laughed: a breezy laugh without a touch of self-consciousness.

"Naturally!  I might have known it.  What else could you expect?  She is
a bride, and head over heels in love,--must have been, to give up all
she did--naturally she'd want to prattle to another woman.  Boring for
you, though, as you know so much more of the game."

Cassandra looked at him thoughtfully.  The electric light overhead
showed the small oval face, with the rose flush on the cheek, the soft
greys of the furs round her throat.  The words came slowly.

"Do you know--it's a strange thing to confess,--but I _don't_!  She is a
bride of two months, and I've been married ten years--but she realises
things now, that I've passed by.  She sees deeper into the difficulties.
She feels _more_, not less."

"You are too modest," Dane said quickly, his brown eyes softening in
involuntary admiration of the beautiful sad face.  "Nothing is easier
than to talk big, before the event.  We can all theorise, and lay down
the law; the tug comes when we begin to act.  Mrs Beverley is living in
Utopia at present, and talks the language thereof.  Very exalted and
charming, no doubt, but--it isn't real!  You should not take her too
seriously."

Cassandra did not reply.  It was not for her to betray another woman's
confidence, and for the moment she was occupied with the side-light
which Peignton's words had given her concerning his own sentiments.--
Grizel Beverley believed in the reality of her Utopia, and intended to
preserve it at the point of the sword; Peignton proclaimed it a delusion
before he had even come into possession.  Such an attitude was not
natural, was not right.  He was not temperamentally a cold-blooded man,
the latent strength of his nature made itself felt, despite the
indifference of his pose, and Teresa was young and pretty and fresh.
Once more the older woman felt a stirring of pity for the younger.  It
was as the champion of Teresa's youth that she spoke at last.

"You seem to have no illusions!  Isn't it rather a pity, at your..."

"Stage of the game?"  He finished the sentence for her with unruffled
composure.  "I think not, Lady Cassandra.  To expect too much, is to
invite disappointment.  I'm not very young, and my experience has shown
me that for most people, life resolves itself into making the most of a
second best.  Things _don't_ turn out as they expect.  They set out to
gain a certain prize, and they don't gain it, or if they do, something
unexpected creeps in to rub off the bloom.  Don't think I'm morbid.  I'm
not; I've no reason to be.  There's a lot of good, steady-going
happiness open to all of us, if we are sensible enough to take it, and
not lose our chance by expecting too much."

"You are very philosophical.  Generally speaking, I suppose you are
right, but we were talking of marriage, when even the most
matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions.  There are not
many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time,
at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a
companion."

"Oh, well!" he said, laughing.  "Oh, well!"

Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration
was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding
himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction.  Once
more she relapsed into silence, considering his words.  Peignton was one
of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a
continuous flow of conversation.  One could be silent, pursuing one's
own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping
touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual
decision.

"A second best!"  Those were the words which had burned themselves on
Cassandra's brain.  Life for the majority of people resolved itself into
making the most of a second best.  There was plenty of good,
steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to
take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable.  The
doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough
of disappointment.  Cassandra made a mental note to think over its
axioms at her leisure.  She had come to the stage when philosophy might
have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that there _had_ been a
day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the
best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in
her hands!  What if it had been a delusion,--she had had her hour, and
nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!

There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so
calmly ignoring the glory of life.  She turned towards him, her eyes
dark with earnestness.

"Ah, no, it's a mistake.  Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there's
a chance of the best?  To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to
expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream!  If the reality
fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream."

Peignton's air of absorption had no personal reference.  The words had
passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself.  He was
looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: "That woman!  To grow
tired of her!  And Raynor! he can never have been worthy to black her
boots."  Peignton had a hatred of waste, and it was waste of the worst
sort to find this adorable woman thrown away on a man who was quite
obtrusively unappreciative.  There was such unconscious commiseration in
his glance, that Cassandra drew back sharply.

"Goodness, how serious we are growing!  It's the rarest thing in the
world for me to theorise.  It must be the pernicious effect of paying
calls.  I'm not responsible for anything I say after being cooped up
with rows of women discussing cooks, and Mothers' Meetings.  Forgive me
if I've bored you!"

"I'm not bored.  I'll think over what you say.  I expect you are right,
and I'm wrong.  When one is obliged to slack physically, as I've done
these last years, the mind is apt to slack in sympathy.  It _is_ a sort
of slacking to be content with makeshifts.  I must brace up, and aim at
the sky, or if a makeshift is inevitable, at least one can use a little
deception and pretend that it is the best."

"_Could_ you do that?"

Cassandra's eyes were incredulous, but Peignton smiled with easy
assurance.

"Oh, yes, certainly.  If I chose.  It's a question of temperament.  It
is always easier to me to be happy, than the other thing.  One adapts
oneself--"

The car stopped at the cross roads and Cassandra held out her hand in
farewell.  The melancholy air had disappeared, an elf of mischief danced
in her eyes.

"Captain Peignton, you are hopelessly prosaic.  It must be a second best
after all, for the dream would be wasted upon you.  The second best,
and--shall I help you to it?"

"Do!" he cried, and they parted with a mutual laugh.  It was only after
the car had whizzed ahead and he was left alone upon the road, that it
occurred to him to connect Teresa Mallison with the offer.

"Poor little girl.  Too bad!" he said to himself then, and there was
tenderness in his eyes, tenderness in his heart.  With every conscious
thought he was loyal to Teresa, yet one thing puzzled him,--when apart
from her, he found it impossible to visualise the girl's face.  As often
as he tried to summon it, it eluded him; he could see nothing but the
sweep of dark hair across a white brow, the oval of delicately flushed
cheeks, a little chin nestled deep into grey furs.  And Raynor was
indifferent to her,--indifferent to that woman!



CHAPTER SIX.

THE EAST END.

Mrs Mallison was one of the kindest of women; she was also one of the
most exasperating.  She herself was complacently aware of the first
fact, and referred to it frequently in conversation, enumerating her
benefactions with obvious satisfaction: of the latter attribute she
remained blandly, blindly unaware.  The combination is frequent, the
havoc wrought thereby in domestic circles widespread throughout the
land.  Mrs Mallison rose early from preference.  Having reached a time
of life when she required little sleep, she found it a relief to rise at
seven, and by an exercise of logic, unanswerable to her own judgment,
considered it incumbent upon the whole household to experience a similar
briskness.  She read a chapter of the Bible and the day's portion of
Daily Light before leaving her bedroom, and prayed sadly to be preserved
throughout the trials and temptations of the day.  To expect happiness
she would have considered a flippant attitude, unworthy a professing
Christian, the glad morning face had no justification in her eyes.

"Well, Bailey!  I wonder what trials the Lord has in store for me
to-day!" she would sigh meekly to the old servant who brought her early
tea, and sallying forth from her bedroom, thus expectant, seldom failed
to encounter several minor trials on the way downstairs: Dust; grease;
marks on white paint.  It was usually a chastened Mrs Mallison who took
her seat behind the urn.

Mrs Mallison had an active mind and a cumbersome body.  This
combination is also widely known, and deplored by grown-up daughters.
No sooner had an idea entered her mind, than she wished it put into
instant execution--by a daughter.  Whatever the daughter might be doing,
however responsible might be her work, she must leave it, dismiss it
from her mind, be ready with heart and will to execute her mother's
behests.  Such was a daughter's duty; to fail in it was to risk
references to serpents' teeth, and to that subsequent burden of remorse,
to be borne by the delinquent, when death should have removed her mother
to another sphere.  Mary Mallison found it simpler to give in at once,
leave a letter half-written, or a photographic plate half-toned, and
adjourn upstairs to move the position of jars on the storeroom shelves,
or make sure that a drawer was safely locked.  She would even rise in
the middle of her breakfast, and walk meekly into the drawing-room to
feel if the palms needed water; but Mary was thirty-two, and anaemic
into the bargain, and her axiom in life was, "For goodness' sake, let us
have peace!"  It was easier to walk a dozen yards into the drawing-room,
than to be talked at for the rest of the meal.  Mary obeyed, swallowing
a constant mental revolt, the strain of which showed in her wan
bloodless face.  Long ago, when she was twenty-four, she had loved a
curate, and the curate had not loved her in return.  No man had ever
loved her; it was to the last degree unlikely that anyone ever would.
Mary offered automatic thanks weekly for the gift of creation, and
smothered as wicked the wonder what she had been created for?  She also,
like her mother, wondered drearily what troubles lay ahead.

Teresa was young, and pretty, and had been educated at a public school.
She had inherited from her mother a fair skin, flaxen locks, a strong
will, and a pertinacity of purpose which might in time develop to
disagreeable proportions.  In the meantime she was the admired youngest
member of a plain and heavy family, and was by nature affectionate and
appreciative.  It was only on occasions that Mrs Mallison was conscious
of running up against a dead rock when she opposed her will to that of
her youngest daughter; only in glimmering rays of light that she
realised that what Teresa desired, almost inevitably came to pass.  Over
and over again the same thing happened.  Teresa had come forward with a
proposition: consent had been withheld, Teresa had withdrawn.  Weeks,
even months had passed by; to all appearance Teresa had abandoned the
proposition, and then suddenly it crystallised, it became fact.
Quietly, placidly, Teresa had bided her time, clinging with limpet-like
determination to her point, moving the pawns on the board, waiting for
the right moment to make the final dash.

Teresa had left the proud position of head girl in a great school to
vegetate in a dull country town, dust the drawing-room, arrange flowers,
make her own blouses, and "keep up her music," and had found the routine
as unsatisfactory as does every other modern girl.  The Mallisons were
comfortably off--that is to say, they had a small detached house, in a
good-sized garden, kept two indoor maids, and a man who looked after the
garden and drove the shabby dog-cart.  They were also able to pay their
bills with praiseworthy regularity, and to take a yearly holiday _en
famille_.  They likewise allowed each daughter thirty pounds a year for
dress and pocket money, and would have strongly resented an insinuation
that they were not acting generously in so doing.  Mary had "managed" on
thirty for a dozen years.  Teresa managed for two, and then relinquished
the struggle.  She made no moan, for moans would have had no avail,
except to bring about her ears a harvest of precepts.  Teresa informed
her sister that "they must be shown," and she proceeded to show them.
She bought no new dress, she went about with her parents in aggressively
shabby clothes, she walked incredible distances to save twopences, and
thereby made herself late for meals; in short she demonstrated to her
old-fashioned parents, that if they wished to possess a pretty,
creditable daughter they must be prepared to pay for her.  The allowance
was increased to fifty, and Mary languished beneath a sense of injury.
Thirty had been considered enough for _her_!

On the morning after Grizel Beverley's reception the Mallison quartette
was assembled at breakfast in the stiff, sunless morning room.  Mrs
Mallison poured out coffee; Major Mallison sat facing her before the
silver bacon dish, the morning light streaming in on his tired,
discouraged face.  Mary sat on the right, opposite the toast-rack and
the egg-stand.  Teresa on the left, by the marmalade and honey jar.  The
_Morning Post_ lay neatly folded on the sideboard.  Mrs Mallison
approved of sociability at meals; conversation helped digestion.  When
the Major declared that he loathed general conversation at breakfast,
and would rather be left in peace than listen to the finest
conversationalist alive, he was told that he was unamiable and selfish,
and a burden of regret prophesied for him also "when he had _no_ one to
talk to!"

Mrs Mallison poured out four cups of coffee, made her usual lament _re_
the price of bacon, and cast a disapproving eye on Teresa's blue _crepe_
blouse.

"I thought, my dear, that you were going to church this morning to
decorate the chancel."

"I am, Mother."

"In that blouse?"

"Certainly.  Why not?"

"Most unsuitable.  Too light.  A dark flannel is the right thing for the
occasion.  You will have time to change it before you start.  Don't
forget!"

Teresa cast down her eyes and applied herself steadily to bacon.  She
had not the slightest intention of wearing a dark flannel blouse.  The
blue _crepe_ had been chosen, not for its durability, but that it might
look pleasant in the eyes of Dane Peignton.  All the mothers in the
world could not have made Teresa change it; so what was the use of
discussing the point!  She gave the conversation an adroit little
switch.

"Don't wait lunch for me, Mother.  I shall probably go to the Vicarage.
We shall need all our time."

"We are having fried steak.  If you come at all, you must be punctual.
If it's done too long, all the strength has gone.  I could give you
sandwiches to eat in the vestry.  Or it might be stewed.  If papa did
not object, it could _quite_ well be stewed.  He dislikes the onions.
If we had carrots instead, would you object, papa?  But, of course,
there's the flavour.  Carrots are _not_ so seasoning...  Perhaps it had
better be sandwiches.  Mary, is there a glass of that chicken and ham
paste?  See if there's a glass, dear.  Cook could make some nice fresh
sandwiches."

Mary moved automatically, but Teresa stopped her with a waving hand.

"I loathe sandwiches.  I shall go somewhere and have a proper lunch.
Don't bother, Mother."

"My dear," said Mrs Mallison reproachfully, "I am your mother.  When
you have a tiring day before you I am naturally anxious that you should
be fed.  They will be busy at the Vicarage.  Cold meat and salad.  One
could hardly expect more, but you are accustomed to a hot dish.  It is
the day for steak, but if papa didn't object we might change.  I don't
care for changes as a rule, it upsets the servants, but just for once.--
A chicken now!  You like chicken.  Just run to the telephone, dear, and
tell Bates to send one up.  Good, roasting.  Three and six.  If papa
doesn't mind."

Not a flicker of expression passed over the Major's face.  He was the
Jorkins of the establishment, and knew well that, useful as he might be
for purposes of quotation, he was negligible as a working factor.  He
continued resignedly to partake of bacon.  Teresa vouchsafed an
appreciative smile.

"We'll have fowl for dinner.  Plenty of time when the boy calls.  I'm
going out to lunch, Mother.  I'd rather.  It's part of the fun."

Mrs Mallison sighed.  Here was one of the expected trials.  A daughter,
unappreciative, preferring to roam abroad, oblivious of the fact that
after a morning's church decorating she would be in possession of a
harvest of small talk which a mother would naturally desire to hear.
Who decorated the lectern; who the finials; who did the windows this
year?  The windows were the least coveted post.  A mother whose daughter
had been honoured with the east end would naturally feel agreeable
sympathy for the mother of those who wrestled modestly with
window-sills.  Then also there were subsidiary interests.  Who brought
the Squire's flowers?  Did Lady Cassandra drive down?  Was the Vicar
tiresome about nails?  Exactly what did everyone present say about
Teresa's scheme of colour?  The good lady felt it hard that she should
have to wait until evening to satisfy her interest on these thrilling
points.  She set her lips and said to herself, "Certainly not!  If young
people have no consideration for others, they cannot expect to be
indulged.  _Not_ fowl.  Roast end of the neck."

At the side of the table Mary sighed, and stared dejectedly into space.
Eight years ago _she_ had been asked to "do" the east end, and the
curate had been by her side all day helping her, reaching to high
places, bending down, taking the vases from her hand.  After all these
years she could still see before her every line of the smooth boyish
face.  He had never loved her, he had gone away and married another
girl, but he had been admiring and attentive; several times in the
course of that day he had made her sit down to rest; at tea at the
Vicarage he had placed a cushion behind her back.  In Mary's starved
life such small incidents took the place of romance.  She looked across
the table at her sister, not so much with envy, as with pity.  Poor
Trissie! she also was dreaming; she also must awake.  And Teresa
understood the glance and set her red lips.  She had not the least
intention in the world of following in Mary's footsteps.  Thirty-two
should never find _her_ dragging along at home!  She thought of Dane
Peignton with the warm glow at the heart which always accompanied the
thought.  If Dane did not "care," her dearest hope would be blasted, but
it was characteristic of Teresa that she could put aside the
possibility, and be assured that even Dane himself could not spoil her
life, or reduce her to Mary's apathy of indifference.

After breakfast came "Worship," when the maids came in and sat on two
chairs placed as near as possible to the door, and the mistress of the
house read aloud a chapter in the Bible, followed by a long prayer from
a book entitled _Family Devotions_.  The chapter this morning was taken
from Judges, and had little obvious bearing on the lives of the hearers.
It is doubtful if anyone attended after the first few verses.  The cook
was listening for the tradesmen's bell.  If it rang in the middle of
Worship it was understood that she was to rise softly and creep out.
Under such circumstances it was, as she expressed it, difficult to
"settle down."  The housemaid was thinking of her young man.  Teresa was
considering her scheme of decoration.  Major Mallison and Mary were
resignedly sitting it out.  For the prayer everyone rose and knelt down,
but the mental attitude remained unchanged.  They rose once more with
sighs of relief.

After breakfast Teresa dusted the drawing-room, made her own bed, and
hung over the banisters listening for the moment when her mother should
begin telephoning orders to the tradespeople, when she herself might
leave the house without fear of further questioning as to the blue
blouse.  She expanded her shoulders with a sigh of relief on reaching
the open air, and sped along the quiet road with the feeling of escape
which every member of the Mallison household experienced when the gate
was safely closed, before a shrill recall had sounded from door or
window.

Teresa's thoughts that morning were occupied as many another daughter's
have been before her, in pondering the astonishing problem of her
parents' youth.  Father and Mother in love!  Father ardent, Mother shy!
Father and Mother exchanging love glances; engrossed in one another's
society.  Could such things be?  And if so--lacerating thought!--_could
they be again_?  In thirty years' time could Teresa and Dane...

Teresa flushed violently.  She had not prayed at Family Worship.  She
had been frankly and emphatically bored, but she prayed now, walking
along the public road, in her blue coat and fashionable jam-pot hat, she
lifted her eyes to the grey skies, and the voice in her heart cried
earnestly: "I'll make him happy!  Help me to keep him happy!  Give him
to me, and make me a good wife."  A glow of tenderness softened the hard
young eyes.  "Make me good," cried Teresa, "_For Dane's sake_!"

She was the first to arrive at the church, before even the Vicar's wife.
Was she not the honoured young worker, to whom had been entrusted the
decoration of the east end?  A mass of daffodils, wallflowers, and
primroses lay banked in baskets along the aisles.  These were the
contributions of the poorer members of the community, the villagers and
owners of small gardens.  Outside the chancel rails were ranged rows of
growing bulbs in pots, hyacinths, narcissus, the finer variety of
daffodils, great trumpet-like heads of white and cream, orange and gold.
These were the first contribution from the Court; later on the carriage
would bring down a hamper of flowers, freshly cut and fragrant.  The
sexton came forward with a box containing the tin vases and fitments
provided for such occasions, and delivered the usual warning about
nails.  The Vicar would allow no nails.  Teresa took off her long coat
and placed it in a pew; the blue of her blouse seemed to take an added
richness from the austerity of the surroundings.  How glad she was that
she had disobeyed her mother and kept it on!

Presently the Vicarage party arrived, and quickly following one after
another the helpers.  Teresa lifted the flower-pots one by one and
placed them behind the delicate tracery of the oak screen, so that the
pots themselves were hidden and the carved openings appeared to give a
vista into a sweet spring garden.

All the while she worked, she kept a strained outlook for Dane's
appearance.  When another helper approached, and would have loitered in
conversation, she made a speedy excuse for hurrying away, lest he should
come now, and their meeting be marred; when her back was turned to the
aisle she listened for the sound of his footsteps.  At any moment he
might enter, stand by her side, call to her in his full, rich tones:
"Miss Teresa!"

Eleven o'clock came, and he had not appeared; half-past eleven.  All the
pots were arranged.  Intentionally Teresa had lingered over the work,
dreading to begin the more elaborate decorations which would require
aid.  If she were seen mounting a stool, some of the men helpers would
at once come forward to assist; and Dane entering and seeing her thus
provided, might attach himself to someone else.  A dull ache of
disappointment filled Teresa's heart.  If he really cared; if the
opportunity meant to him what it did to herself, he would not have
wasted the hours.  She put her last pot in its place, stood back to view
the effect, and heard at last the longed-for words of welcome.

"Miss Teresa--here I am; bright and early, you see!  What have you got
for me to do?"

He was smiling, composed, unconscious of offence.  The ache sharpened
into pain at the realisation, but Teresa had a wisdom beyond her years,
and allowed no sign of disappointment to become visible.  To sulk and
looked aggrieved was not the way to increase a man's admiration.  She
smiled into his eyes, and cried readily:

"Heaps of things!  I need you for all the stretchy places.  You are so
big.  And those great palms...  They have to go into the corners.  Will
you help me to move them?"

"Certainly not.  I'll do it myself.  Just point out where they are to
go.  What's the good of me if I can't save you fatigue?"

The tenderness of his smile was as ointment of healing, but true to her
principles Teresa averted her eyes, and put on her most business-like
manner, so that no answering sign of tenderness might be visible.  Not
to the verger himself had her manner been more cool and detached, but
Dane showed no sign of dissatisfaction.  They had met to work, not to
make love; he admired the girl for her brisk, capable ways, and found
pleasure in the sight of her alert young figure clad in the short skirt,
stout boots, and untrimmed hat.  They worked industriously for the next
half-hour, banking up comers of palms, covering the foremost pots with a
velvety cushion of moss.  Side by side they knelt on the marble floor,
pulling apart the fragrant sods, patting them into shape.  Once when a
rebellious morsel refused to remain in place Teresa fumbled among her
yellow locks for a hairpin to act as skewer, whereupon Dane made a quick
movement to withdraw her hand.

"No, no, it's covered with soil! ...  Let me!"  He covered his finger
and thumb with a handkerchief, carefully extracted the nearest pin, and
held it towards her.  "That's better!  It's too bad to soil your pretty
hair.  You've got loads of hair, haven't you?  I love to see a girl with
good hair.  How far does it come down?"

"Past my waist."  Teresa's conscience pricked her on account of one
braid which could come down as far as required, but there seemed no
immediate need for confession on that score.  Her cheeks were flushed,
she took a long time over the last arrangement of moss, pondering
uneasily.  Had anyone _seen_?  What would they think?  She hoped to
goodness that Miss Mason's eyes had been averted!  What Miss Mason saw
at noon, was parish news by sunfall...  "By the by, you'll be interested
to hear that Teresa Mallison is engaged to that young Peignton.  I saw
him _distinctly_ stroking her hair."  In imagination she could hear the
thin, clipped voice scattering the news broadcast.  And in time it would
come to Dane's own ears...

Teresa rose and cast a searching glance round the church.  No one was
looking, the workers were engrossed and preoccupied.  The Vicar's wife
was affixing a cross of daffodils to the front of the pulpit, the
doctor's daughters were trimming the lectern with stiff little bunches
of daffodils.  All down the aisle workers were twisting sprays of ivy
round the tall gas standards, in the discreet background dowdy nobodies
were wrestling with window-sills.  The Vicar's wife held firmly to the
theory of universal brotherhood, but it would never have occurred to her
to ask a wealthy parishioner to "do" the windows, or a tradesman's wife
to undertake the east end.  Teresa and Dane left the chancel and stood
hesitating at the head of the aisle.  Now they were ready for the cut
flowers, and the cut flowers had not arrived.

"The Squire promised to send down.  I wrote again last night to remind
him.  He _can't_ have forgotten."

"Oh, no.  They'll be here soon.  There's a car at the door now."
Peignton peered forward, looking down the length of the aisle into the
sunlit churchyard beyond, and the girl watching him, as she loved to do
at unobserved moments, saw a sudden light come into the lazy eyes.  She
peered in her turn, and beheld a small grey foot emerge from the door of
the car, then a second foot, and finally a tall figure, grey-robed,
grey-furred, which stood aside, sharply outlined against the darkness of
the background, and waited for the descent of still another figure,
coated in white.

Lady Cassandra! ... she had come herself, and with her Mrs Martin
Beverley.  They were driving about together in the morning, a sign of
intimacy more eloquent than a dozen afternoon meetings.  They were
smiling into each other's faces as they walked up the church path,
talking with the ease of lifelong friends.

Teresa felt a pang of jealousy, not of Dane Peignton,--these women were
married and could have no interest for him,--but for herself, and her
position in the Raynor household.  Proud as she had been of the degree
of intimacy to which she had been admitted, in her heart she had
acknowledged the presence of a barrier shutting her out from personal
friendship.  She had been a favoured acquaintance, nothing more, and now
a friend had appeared, and the acquaintance must needs stand aside.

Up the church aisle came the two women, side by side, graver now as
befitted their surroundings, yet bringing with them a whiff of the world
of gaiety and fashion, the influence of which spread subtly over the
feminine body of workers.  The Vicar's wife pulled down her cuffs, and
brushed the leaves from her gown; the doctor's daughters arranged stray
locks, and placed themselves in artistic attitudes around the desk, and
from the background poor Miss Bruce looked on with widened eyes.

Cassandra came forward to shake hands with Mrs Evans, the natural
hostess of the occasion.

"Good morning, Mrs Evans.  How busy you all are!  I drove down with the
flowers, and brought Mrs Beverley with me.  The groom is bringing them
in.  We promised Miss Mallison--"

She looked around, caught sight of Teresa and Peignton standing side by
side, and nodded, faintly smiling.  The affair was progressing then!  No
need for outside help.  Teresa, flushed and happy, the blue of her
blouse setting off the pink and white of her complexion, looked her most
attractive self.  Cassandra envied her, pitied her, felt an inexplicable
irritation with her, all at the same moment, but being bred in the
school which considers the suppression of feeling to be the first axiom
of good manners, her smile of greeting remained unchanged.

The vases for the altar had been carried into a vestry, where they stood
on a table ready to be filled.  The groom was directed where to carry
his hamper, and the two visitors followed, talking in undertones to
Teresa and Dane as they went.  Inside the room itself there was a
greater sense of freedom, and their voices instantly heightened in tone.
They had an air of having nothing to do, and of being indifferent as to
how long they stayed, which was far from welcome to one at least of the
workers.

Teresa had planned exactly how the vases were to be arranged, and had
anticipated a happy half-hour, alone with Dane, free from the
observation of curious eyes.  She was capable of carrying out her own
ideas, and wished for no assistance.  It was Peignton who made the
unwelcome suggestion that Cassandra should remain to help.

"I'm out of this!" he said, shrugging.  "Never arranged flowers in my
life, and don't know how to begin.  Dragging about palms is more in my
line, but that's done now, and I'm no more use.  Sorry to be such a
broken reed, Miss Teresa!  Perhaps Lady Cassandra--" He looked at
Cassandra, and once again his eyes lightened, as if what they beheld was
good in his sight.  "I am sure you know how to arrange flowers!"

"Oh, yes," Cassandra said calmly, "I'm supposed to be quite good.  Well,
Teresa, I am at your service.  You are in command.  Issue your
instructions!  Mrs Beverley, you won't mind waiting a short time?"

"Oh, no," Grizel said sweetly.  "I'll help too!"  She made no motion to
take off her gloves, however, but stood watching with a lazy smile while
her companion threw off her furs in business-like fashion.  The square
emerald sparkled against the whiteness of her hand, as she turned over
flowers, searching for the most perfect specimens.  Once more Dane
watched it with fascinated attention, once more looked from it to
Teresa's hands, reddened and stained with soil, and hastily averted his
eyes.  Henceforth he kept them averted.  There was no disloyalty in
admiring a beautiful thing.  The wrong began when one stooped to
invidious comparisons.

By degrees it came about that Cassandra arranged, while the others stood
by, and supplied her wants.  She was accustomed to the handling of
delicate blooms, and possessed little coaxing tricks of propping and
supporting, which added greatly to their effect.  Of the first two vases
completed, hers was so palpably superior, that the obvious course was to
invite her to undertake all five.  Teresa gave the invitation with a
good grace, and stood aside handing sprays of lilies, and disentangling
delicate fronds of green.

As she stood she faced a small mirror on the wall, before which the Rev.
Vicar presumably concluded his clerical toilet.  At the moment it gave
back the reflection of herself and Cassandra, standing side by side, and
the contrast stung.  At home, by the same law of contrast, Teresa
complacently considered herself next door to a beauty, but seen side by
side with Cassandra Raynor, her image appeared of a sudden coarsened and
blunted.  Moreover, the inferiority was not confined to the body;
mentally as well as physically she was at a disadvantage;--her words
seemed halting and difficult, compared with the other's delicate ripple
of conversation.  Teresa's honesty accepted the fact, disagreeable
though it was.  The little ache at her heart was not caused so much by
jealousy, as by regret for the hour which she had longed for, the hour
which was not to be.  Surreptitiously she watched Peignton to see if he
shared her disappointment.  His manner was quieter than when they had
been alone together.  He looked less at his ease, but he was interested,
his eyes followed the delicate work with absorbed attention.  He was
more interested, rather than less.  Teresa felt suddenly very tired.
She had hoped he would look disappointed!

Meanwhile Grizel had strolled out of the vestry and stood viewing the
scene with lazy, smiling eyes.  The workers were so busy that they had
not noticed her approach, and she had time to study them unawares.  For
the most part they worked in pairs, consulting together, the more
deft-handed arranging the flowers, the less skilful acting as assistant,
and executing her commands.  Quietly though they worked, there was in
the air a sense of _camaraderie_; and one divined that these workers
were friends who had chosen to work together, and enjoyed the
companionship.  In the background a solitary black-robed figure stood
straining upward from the seat of a pew, engaged in covering the sill of
a window with fragments of foliage, and those inferior flowers which had
been rejected for more prominent places.  Grizel took a short cut
through a pew, and approached this worker's side.

"May I help you?" she asked, and Miss Bruce turned her head and stared
in bewilderment.  She was a middle-aged spinster, who lived in a small
villa, with a small servant-girl, a fox-terrier, and a canary in a brass
cage.  She possessed exactly two hundred pounds a year, and felt herself
rich.  It was only in the matter of friends that she was poor, for the
taint of trade set her apart from the people whom she wished to know,
while as a lady of independent means she, in her turn, despised the
class from which she had sprung.  Mrs Evans considered Miss Bruce a
"useful" worker, and asked her to tea regularly once a year, in addition
to a summer garden party.  The churchwarden's wife was asked to meet her
on these occasions.  "You won't mind, dear, I know," the Vicar's wife
would premise.  "You _are_ so kind, and it gives her such pleasure, poor
soul!"  But as a matter of fact the tea party gave Miss Bruce no
pleasure at all.  She was keen enough to realise the exact conditions of
her invitation, and instead of feeling flattered was wounded and
aggrieved...  "Last week she had nine people there one afternoon, the
Mallisons and the Escourts, all that set.  Ellen heard about it from the
cook.  Why couldn't she ask me then?" she would ask herself bitterly.
"Never anyone but Mrs Rose!"  Every year she decided to refuse the next
invitation, but when it came to the time her courage failed.  In the
deadly dullness of her life a change was too rare to be lightly
foregone.  She stepped down from her high perch now, and turned her dull
eyes to stare into Grizel Beverley's happy face.

"May I help you a little?"

"Thank you.  It's very kind, I'm sure.  I shall be much obliged."

"_That's_ all right!" said Grizel cordially, and promptly seated herself
at the end of a pew, and extended an arm along the top of the oaken
back, in an attitude of luxurious ease.  Exactly what form the "help"
was to take it was difficult to guess, but Miss Bruce was not thinking
of such mundane considerations; her mind was occupied in grasping the
astounding fact that the latest celebrity of the countryside, Mrs
Martin Beverley, late Miss Grizel Dundas, had chosen to single out her
insignificant self, when some of the most important ladies in the parish
were present.

"It's--not very interesting over here," she stammered apologetically.
"Window-sills are so dull.  It's impossible to get an effect."

"They _are_ rather muddly, aren't they?"  Grizel agreed cheerfully,
casting a roving eye over the branches of greenery, scattered
intermittently with daffodils which had had their day.  "But I daresay
no one will look...  I don't think I know your name, do I?  You haven't
called on me yet?"

Miss Bruce flushed a deep brick-red.  Her lips tightened in remembrance
of the old grudge.

"I--don't call!" she said bluntly.  "It would not be--acceptable.  I am
poor."

"Oh, so am I!  There we can sympathise.  Isn't it _dull_?" cried Grizel
gaily.

Miss Bruce looked at her in silent disclaimer.  No one could look into
Grizel's face and doubt the honesty of her words, but Miss Bruce
reflected tartly that there were different degrees of poverty!  Why, the
clothes on the bride's back this morning must have cost a considerable
portion of her own year's income!  The white coat hung in strange and
wonderful folds, the outside was severely plain, just a simple,
unadorned cloth garment which an ordinary woman might have worn; but as
she sat, the fronts had fallen apart, and the spinster gazed with awe
upon a gorgeousness of lining such as it had not entered into her brain
to conceive.  Ivory brocade, shot through with gold; a band of exquisite
embroidery where the two fabrics met, cascades of delicate lace.  Miss
Bruce was fond of coining phrases to express her meaning.  She coined
one now, "Muffled magnificence!"  It seemed an inconceivable thing that
any woman could allow such richness to be hidden away beneath a cloth
exterior, yet something latent within her applauded the feat.  "Muffled
magnificence," she repeated to herself, her gloating eyes taking in each
perfection of detail.  Her lips twisted in grim realisation of the
difference in degrees of poverty, but a quality of sincerity and
kindliness in Grizel's hazel eyes prompted an unwonted confidence.  She
heard herself saying quite simply and naturally:

"There is something besides poverty, Mrs Beverley!  My father was a
plumber.  Quite in a big way, of course, but still,--he was in trade.
He was a very good father; he educated me well and left me enough to
live on.  I'm grateful to him, but,--you can understand--"

Grizel gave a soft little _move_ of appreciation.

"A _good_ plumber.--A plumber with principles...  Oh, you _must_ be
proud!  I've travelled all over the world, but I never heard of such a
thing before.  All the other plumbers I've heard of have brought misery
on everyone who knew them...  You must certainly come to see me, and
tell me all about him, and I'll call on you too, and see his
photograph...  Had he a chin beard?"

Miss Bruce's gratification was merged in stunned surprise.

"Chin--beard?"

"They always have.  Haven't you noticed?  If your father hadn't, that
makes him more wonderful still.  And where is your house, Miss--"

"Bruce.  In Rose Lane.  Near the Men's Institute.  A little house with a
green porch.  You wouldn't have noticed--"

"I've just come, you see," Grizel apologised, "and I've been busy about
my own little house.  I'll show it to you, and you must show me yours.
When will you come to tea?"

Miss Bruce stood silent, struggling between a longing to name a date,
clinch the invitation, and wave a flag of triumph in the eyes of her
enemies, and some softer feeling which forebade taking advantage of the
ignorance of a new-comer.  She looked down at the young happy face, at
the slim young body in its dainty trappings, and a rare impulse of
tenderness stirred in her dried heart.  People said that Mrs Beverley
had been born to a great fortune, had lived in luxury among the highest
in the land, but she gave herself fewer airs than many upstarts in
semi-detached villas.  One good turn deserved another.  Miss Bruce rose
to unexampled heights of sacrifice.

"It is very kind of you--I appreciate it, but I'd better not!  The
gentlefolk don't know me, don't want to.  If they met me sitting in your
drawing-room it would be awkward for everybody concerned."

Grizel elevated expressive eyebrows.

"I choose my own friends.  No one has a right to dictate.  I'll drive
over for you some day, and carry you off whether you want to or not.
You could help me so much!  There are thousands of things I want to know
about the place, and the workpeople, and where to send, and what to do
when things happen--they always _are_ happening in a house, and I've a
sort of conviction that you could tell me!  I'm rather a lazy person,
but I get things done.  Providence is kind in sending along people to do
them for me."

Such was the magnetism of the dimpling smile that Miss Bruce entirely
forgot that this was the person who in the present instance had
volunteered to help herself, and stammered ardent promises.  Anything
she could do!  Everything she could do.  Only too pleased and proud--

"_That's_ all right, then.  And about those daffodils!  _Don't_ you
think they'd look better massed together into little groups?  They do
look so plaintive fading away all on their own little lones.  You'd get
more effect from good-sized bunches!"

"Well, I can try!"  Miss Bruce conceded amiably, and for the next ten
minutes she worked diligently, carrying out the instructions given by a
soft voice, and a waving hand in an exquisitely fitting glove.  The
result was distinctly to the good, and Grizel had no hesitation in
taking her due share of praise.

"We _have_ done them well!" she said graciously at parting, and Miss
Bruce magnanimously agreed.

"Thank you so much for your help!"

Grizel made another short cut through a pew, and was intercepted by the
Vicar's wife, who had been watching the _tete-a-tete_ with wondering
eyes.  Mrs Martin Beverley, and poor Miss Bruce!  What on earth had
they found to talk about all that time?  Her keen eyes were alight with
curiosity, but Grizel vouchsafed no information; she knew without
hearing what the good lady would have to say, and was in no mind to hear
it.  Perhaps of all sins, pride is the most universal, and the most
varied in the manner of its presentment.  It hides itself under many
disguises, obtrudes its head in the most unexpected situations.  The
socialist railing at society, and calling upon mankind to follow his
example, is often more inflated with pride than the aristocrats against
whom he inveighs: an ardent philanthropist living happily among East End
roughs, will display unexpected bristles to a fellow-worker who has not
known the advantages of a public school; so Grizel Beverley, looking
down on the small folk of Chumley from the altitude of her past
experiences, failed to grasp Infinitesimal distinctions, and saw no
reason why she should be hindered thereby.  She had no mind to obey
instructions from the Vicar's wife!  She floated past with a nod and a
smile, and joined the little group of three who were standing outside
the Cancel rails, surveying the effect of the completed vases.  The girl
Teresa looked paler and more set in expression; tired, no doubt, with
her morning's _work_.  Cassandra, on the contrary, looked refreshed, the
interest of having work to do, and doing it well, lighting her eyes into
a girlish brightness.  Her face was almost as happy as Grizel's own, as
she turned to greet her.

"Here you are!  I hope I've not kept you too long.  It must be nearly
time for lunch."  She cast a quick glance at the two by her side, and
added tentatively; "I'm going straight back in the car; won't you both
come, too, and let me feed you after your labours?  Do!  I'd be so
pleased."

Without a flicker of hesitation came Teresa's refusal.

"Thank you; I couldn't possibly.  I've not finished.  There is always a
cold lunch at the Vicarage.  Mrs Evans asks anyone who likes to go.
It's so near."

"Yes, of course."  Cassandra held out her hand in placid acceptance of
the fact, spoke a few words of farewell, and turned to Peignton, taking
for granted a like excuse on his part, but he was hesitating, and
displaying an obvious wish to accept.

"Is there anything more that I can do to help you, Miss Teresa?--If my
work is finished, there's no need for me to stay.  Of course, if there's
anything I can do--"

"No, thank you.  Only a few odds and ends.  Nothing serious.  I can
manage quite well," said Teresa staunchly.  Her heart was cramped with
pain, but she made no sign.  As calmly as a martyr of old, she smiled
through the fire, shook hands with each of the three in turn, and
accompanied them a few steps down the aisle.

Cassandra walked ahead, her head in the air.  "Now why did he do that?"
she asked herself uneasily.  "I asked them together.  I never dreamed he
would come alone.  Perhaps Bernard was mistaken, and there's nothing
between them, after all.  She seemed absolutely detached!"  The
possibility brought with it a sense of relief, and her thoughts flew
ahead to the afternoon.  "I'll take him to my summer-house to tea, and
we can talk.  There are quite a number of things I want to say..."

It was five o'clock before Teresa Mallison returned home that afternoon,
for the "few odd things" stretched out to unexpected length.  The day
had turned out very differently from what she expected, but there was no
anger in her heart against the two who had disturbed her peace.  With
unusual fairness of mind she realised their unconsciousness, their
unwillingness to offend.  Things had just happened.  No one was to
blame.  This philosophic attitude did not prevent her from being
exceedingly short and snappy with her family for the rest of the
evening, or from refusing coldly to partake of the fowl which had been
provided for her delectation.  To some natures a scapegoat is necessary,
and in nine cases out of ten they are conveniently discovered in the
home circle.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

STOLEN HOURS.

Driving home in the car Cassandra was conscious of contending emotions
which carried her back to nursery days; pleasure, excitement, an
underlying gnawing of guilt.  So had she felt, stealthily playing in a
corner with a toy purloined from a sister's store, and yet, as she
assured herself, there was no need for compunction.  She had invited
both Teresa and Dane; it was not her fault if the girl chose to refuse;
not her fault if the man was ungallant enough to accept.  Yet the
feeling of guilt persisted.  She looked curiously at Peignton to see if
he shared her discomfort, but never did a man look more serene and
unperturbed.  Happy too!  The thrill of pleasurable excitement which in
her case was a real, though secondary sensation, was, to judge by
appearance, all-pervading in his case.  His eyes shone, the tired-out
look had disappeared; his lips smiled.

"What a good thing a good car is!  I used to swear by walking, but the
time has come when I find it very agreeable to slip into a cushioned
seat, and be whirled where I would go.  There's something mysteriously
fatiguing about decorating churches; haven't you found it so?  Perhaps
it is the necessity of keeping quiet and forbearing from expressing
oneself as one otherwise would, when one is unexpectedly scratched or
bruised.  In any case, I _am_ tired.  And hungry!  It is good of you to
offer to feed me."

Cassandra smiled with the comfortable assurance of one who takes perfect
meals as a matter of course.  There was no consciousness of cold mutton,
no fear of a heavy pudding, to mar her enjoyment of an unexpected guest,
but having never experienced a housekeeper's anxiety, she failed to
appreciate the relief.

"I hope they will give you something fit to eat!"

"And afterwards...  Will you show me your garden?"

"I have no special garden.  I do nothing myself.  I'm always making up
my mind to take over a little corner, but it takes a long time to make
up my mind.  I don't want to dig and delve.  I enjoy the flowers better
when I get them without any trouble.  It would be simply an effort to
try to find an interest.--Do you believe in troubling to find an
interest, when it doesn't come naturally?"

"Yes," Dane said simply, and Cassandra stared at him with a feeling of
check.  She had not expected that quiet "yes"; it carried with it a
finality which put an end to argument.

"I have had to do it, you see!" he added.  "The thing which _did_
interest me became impossible, so I was obliged to find something else
to fill the gap."

Cassandra lay back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh of
resignation.

"Oh, dear! here we are back at our Second Bests!  I hate Second Bests,
and makeshifts of every description, and I don't recognise any
obligation to adopt them.  If I can gain an interest only at the cost of
something it doesn't interest me to do, how can it be an interest at
all?  I'm talking nonsense, but it's your fault...  You are so painfully
philosophic...  Does a land agency _really_ fill the gap left by the old
regiment, and its associations?"

"Nothing near it.  But it helps.  It is several degrees better than
nothing."  Peignton spoke resolutely, but his face twitched, and
Cassandra was smitten with compunction.

"Ah!  I shouldn't have said it.  It was mean of me.  When you are so
brave..."  Her voice sank to a tenderness of which she was unaware, as
she asked the next question: "What was it?  I never heard more than just
that you had a breakdown!"

"Lungs," he said simply.  "I had a cough, and it stuck to me, and I lost
weight, but I never dreamt of anything serious.  It was a bit of a--jar!
I was packed off home to a sanatorium, and came out at the end of six
months with a clean bill of health.  I've been up to be vetted every few
months since.  The last time it was a new fellow, and he could not spot
the weak place, so I'm all right, you see; it has just made me
physically a few years older than I really am.  Given care, and an
outdoor life, I have as good a chance as another man."

"Oh, of course.  So many people...  It's _nothing_ now, compared with
what it used to be," Cassandra assented hurriedly.  _That_ was the
reason of the subtly appealing look which had puzzled her from her first
meeting with this man!  He had looked death in the face; had left the
mimic playing at arms, to fight a hand-to-hand battle with that grim
spectre through weary weeks and months.  Such an experience could not
fail to leave its mark, however resolutely it might be ignored.  She was
silent for some minutes, staring dreamily out of the window, while Dane
in his turn studied her face, and wondered in masculine innocence why
every woman did not wear chinchilla.

"How do you take it when such blows come?" she asked slowly at last.
"Do you rage or sulk?  I suppose with ordinary human creatures it comes
down to one of the two.  Only the saints are resigned, and I don't fancy
you--"

"No, indeed.  Very far from it!"  He laughed, then sobered quickly.  "I
suppose I,--sulked!  I got the credit for taking it uncommonly well, but
that was because I was too proud to fuss.  Pity hurt.  For my own
selfish sake it was easier to bluff it out, and pretend to be hopeful.
But inside--I went through a pretty fair imitation of hell in those
first few weeks!"

In Cassandra's low croon of sympathy sounded all the warmth of her Irish
heart; her eyes were liquid with sympathy.

"And then?  Afterwards...  How soon did you--"

"Pull myself together?  Oh, I dunno!  As soon as I--began to pull round,
I suppose!"  He shrugged his shoulders.  "Not much credit in that, was
there?  I _sulked_, as you put it, so long as everything seemed over,
but when I saw I was going to live on, I was obliged to rouse myself to
see what could be done.  That's natural!  The more one has lost, the
more important it is to make the most of what remains.  I couldn't enjoy
my life in the way I intended, but I was determined to enjoy it all the
same."

"And have you?"

"Rather!  Look at me now.  Having a rattling time.  I've never enjoyed
things more in my life than during the last few weeks."

"Church decorations included!"  Cassandra enquired with malice prepense.
She wanted to see if he would look self-conscious at what was meant to
be a veiled reference to his connection with Teresa, but he looked at
her with the frankest of smiles and said: "Yes; didn't you?" and it was
she, not he, who suffered from embarrassment.

At lunch Bernard was unaffectedly pleased to see the unexpected guest,
and throughout its course talked to him persistently on topics which
left Cassandra out in the cold.  She was evidently accustomed to be thus
ignored, for her dreamy eyes showed that her thoughts were far away, and
she replied so absently to Dane's tentative attempts to draw her into
the conversation, that he was not encouraged to persevere.  She awoke to
sudden sharp consciousness, however, when Bernard began making
suggestions for the afternoon, taking for granted that his guest was
ready to accompany him wherever he should suggest to go.  "I've been
wanting to drive round Boxley for some time.  You come along and give me
your advice," he said finally, and again Cassandra knew a revival of
youthful days in the tingle of anger, the incredulous load of
disappointment, which like a real physical weight pressed upon her
heart.  It was ridiculous, it was absurd, it was quite ludicrously out
of proportion, to feel so torn about so small a thing, but she _was_
torn.  It was in her at that moment to blaze into anger, to speak loud
protesting words, to push aside her plate and dash from the room.  All
the different impulses which had torn the girl Cassandra when defrauded
of a promised treat of the nursery surged up suddenly in the breast of
the woman who sat in silent dignity at the head of her table, smiling
her unruffled, society smile.

Bernard, of course--Bernard never took her into consideration;
but,--_What would Peignton say_?

What he said was the easiest, most natural of explanations.

"Thanks very much.  Another time I'd be delighted, but this afternoon
Lady Cassandra has promised to show me the gardens.  Perhaps we could
fix a day for next week?"

The Squire knitted his eyebrows, and looked from his guest to his wife,
back again from his wife to his guest.  Plainly he was concerned,
plainly also he was concerned for his guest's sake, not that of his
wife.

"That's very good of you," he said slowly, "but er--the whole afternoon?
Rather a fag, isn't it?  You could have a walk round after lunch, and
we'd start at three."

"Thanks, but it's against my principles to divide good things.  We'll do
Boxley next week, if you'll give me the chance."

The Squire looked at his wife again and smiled, a good-natured smile.
He was obviously content that she should be amused, provided that he
himself had no trouble in the matter.

"That's all right, then," he said.  "We'll leave it at that.  Cass will
be quite pleased to have someone to talk to.  Won't you, Cass?"

"Very pleased!" said Cassandra gravely.  It was beyond her at that
moment to make pretence, but the earnestness of her face had the effect
of launching her husband on an old grievance.

"It's your own fault, you know; your own fault!  I'm always talking to
you about it.  She won't make friends, Peignton!  Lived within a couple
of miles of Chumley all these years, and hasn't a single friend.  Says
there's no one to know.  Rubbish!  Don't tell me...  Lots of 'em, if she
took the trouble to find out.  Too proud, that's the size of it, and
they know it, and it gets 'em on the raw.  She's made herself jolly
unpopular, that's what she's done.  You can't deny that you have made
yourself unpopular!"

"I am quite the most unpopular woman in the neighbourhood," Cassandra
said, with the sideways tilt of the chin which Dane was beginning to
recognise.  "It's humiliating, but I can't see that I am to blame.  I
bore the Chumley people, and they bore me, and if I'm to be bored at
all, I so very much prefer to do it for myself.  I don't complain of
being alone."

"Oh, yes, you do.  Not in words, perhaps.  There are a jolly lot of ways
in which a woman can rub it in," cried the Squire with a shrewdness at
which Cassandra laughed with unruffled good-nature.

"Poor Bernard!  Have I rubbed it in?  Never mind!  Grizel Beverley is
going to prove a host in herself, and Captain Peignton is giving me a
whole afternoon, and I've been at the church for over an hour,
decorating, and talking prettily to the other helpers.  Things are
looking up.  Who knows!  I may be quite sociable by the end of another
year!"

But the Squire refused to be cajoled.

"Lots of 'em!" he repeated pugilistically.  "Lots.  All those houses,
and a woman in each.  Don't tell me!  What's the matter with Mrs
Mawson?  What's the matter with Miss Mawle?  What's the matter with the
Baxters, or the Gardiners, or Mrs Evans?"

"I like Mrs Evans.  I think I almost _love_ the real Mrs Evans,"
Cassandra said thoughtfully.  "I have always a feeling that if I were in
trouble the real Mrs Evans would understand.  But one so seldom gets a
glimpse of her!"

"Don't understand what you are talking about.  Who else do you get a
glimpse of?"

"The Vicar's wife," said Cassandra, and rising from the table put an end
to the discussion.

After lunch the two men sat together smoking and talking, but before the
end of half an hour Peignton grew restless, and cast about in his mind
for an excuse to escape.  Would Lady Cassandra come for him, or was he
supposed to search for Lady Cassandra?  In any case the best of the day
was passing, and it was folly to waste time indoors.  He strolled to the
window, caught sight of a woman's figure among the bushes on the nearer
lawn, and lost no time in following.  It was Cassandra, as he had
surmised, Cassandra in a knitted coat and cap of a soft rose colour
which matched the flush on her cheeks; her hands were thrust into her
pockets, and she nodded welcome to him with a girlish air.  No girl
could have looked younger, or fresher, or more free from care, and she
felt as free as she looked.  The guilty feeling of the morning had
disappeared, she had forgotten Teresa Mallison, and her claims, while
her husband's scepticism of the fact that any man should choose to spend
an afternoon with her for his own enjoyment, had stirred up latent
founts of coquetry.  Peignton should enjoy himself!  She had not yet
forgotten how to charm a man.  She would charm him now so that his
afternoon in the spring garden should be a time to be remembered.  She
need not have troubled.  Grave or gay, nothing that she could have said
or done could possibly have failed to charm Peignton.  But of that fact
she was, as yet, as ignorant as himself.  The south windows of the Court
opened on to a stone terrace from which two separate flights of steps
gave access to a succession of gardens, sloping down to the wide stretch
of park.  At the head of each stairway, and against the house in the
spaces between the windows stood stone vases filled with the gayest of
spring flowers.  The fragrance of them filled the air, their colours
flared gloriously against the dull grey background, and threw into
striking contrast the green severity of the Dutch garden immediately
beneath.  Here, later on in the year, the beds would exhibit gay
specimens of the latest development in carpet gardening, but in the
meantime they were bare, and the quaintly cut trees and shrubs had a
grim, almost funereal austerity.  Lower down came a rose garden, with
pergolas leading in four separate avenues to a centre dome.  In summer
the rose garden was a fairyland of beauty, but its time was not yet.
The gardeners were busy pruning and training, cleverly inserting new
branches among the old.  Peignton noticed that though Cassandra gave the
men a pleasant greeting, she did not pause for any of the questioning,
the propositions, the consultations as to how and where, which true
garden lovers find irresistible under such circumstances.  She led the
way to the lily beds, the ferneries, the herbaceous borders, and the
sunk garden, all slumbering in the promise of beauty to come, last of
all to the rockery, already ablaze with the gold of alyssum and the
purple of aubretia, the little pockets between the stones filled with
every variety of spring bulb: daffodils of yellow, white, and orange,
flaring tulips, early hyacinths, and many-coloured anemones.

After the unbroken greenery of the higher terraces, the rockery appeared
a riot of colour, as if the very spirit of spring had chosen it for an
abode.  The air was sweet with fragrance, the sloping banks formed a
protection against the breeze; it seemed an ideal position in which to
pause and rest.

"Where," Dane asked tentatively, "does one sit?"

"Wherever one can.  On the least bumpy stone within reach," Cassandra
replied.  She seated herself in illustration upon a boulder covered with
a cushion of shaded moss, and immediately began snipping leaves from a
shrub of scented verbena, the which she inhaled with languid enjoyment.
"Just avoid stalks, and you are all right.  Saxifrages _like_ being sat
on; they are even grateful if you stamp upon them with strong boots, so
you need feel no scruples."  She held the lemon leaf poised in air,
studying his face with curious eyes.  "You are rather given to scruples,
aren't you?  Your conscience is very active!"

"I'm afraid it is," Dane said regretfully, as he in his turn selected an
impromptu seat.  "My people were all Friends, so it's an inheritance.  A
Nonconformist conscience has a terrible persistence; there's no living
it down.  It's been a handicap to me many times, obtruding itself when
it wasn't wanted.  One doesn't seem to have much personal connection
with one's conscience.  It seems so entirely independent of will, that
there's no kudos attached to having a lively one, or no blame if he's
quiescent.  Mine happens to be of the persistent kind, and particularly
long-lived.  He was a worry to me in the nursery; he's a worry to-day.
I don't think--" he paused for a moment, as if judicially weighing his
words--"I don't think I've ever been able to do wrong with any real
satisfaction!"

They looked at each other and laughed, but Cassandra hastily lowered her
eyes, affecting to bend over a further bed in search of a new fragrance.
In reality she was afraid that her eyes might show the tenderness of
her heart.  The man's expression as he looked at her had been so full of
goodness and honesty that the hidden impulse had been to stretch out her
own hand and touch his, to stroke it, and hold it close, and say such
fond words as women will, when their hearts are touched.  "You dear
thing!  You dear thing! what harm have _you_ done?  _Your_ conscience
may sit at ease!" ...  With a fellow-woman one would have carried out
the impulse, but convention forbade such sincerities between a man and a
woman unconnected by blood.  Convention decreed that genuine feeling
should be disguised.

"Can't you?" said Cassandra lightly.  "Oh, _I_ can!  I sinned gloriously
in short frocks, with never a thought of consequences.  My chum sister
was my partner in wickedness, we planned all our rebellions together,
but when it came to the bit, she missed half the fun.  I could bury
everything in the joy of the moment, and forget there was such a thing
as to-morrow...  She had no sooner done the deed, than she began to be
visited by qualms.  I didn't object as much as I might have done, for if
the sin was edible--and it generally was.--there was so much the more
left for me.  She used to sit and shiver, and say: `Cass, you'll be ill!
What _will_ Mother say?' while I ate up her share."

"And were you ill?"

"I forget," said Cassandra, and looked at him with a rebel's eyes.  "But
I ate my cake!"

Before he had time to answer, suddenly, impetuously she had sprung to
her feet, and darted round a corner of the rockery to shelter behind a
clump of shrubs.  Peignton followed, alert but mystified, but the
explanation came swiftly enough.  From the raised path which curved
through the park to the entrance of the house came a familiar whirr, and
the next moment there sped into sight a large grey car carrying two men
on the box, and within the tonneau one large, elderly dame.  From the
distance it was not possible to distinguish her face, but Cassandra
recognised her all the same, and groaned aloud.

"Mrs Freune... from Bagton.  What _shall_ I do?"

"They'll look for you?"

"She'll make them.  They'll ask the gardeners.  They'll say I'm here."

"Let's run away!"

She looked at him and her eyes danced, but the instincts of hospitality
put up a fight.  "It's a long drive!  Twelve miles.  She'll want tea."

"Does she stay long?"

"Hours.  And talks politics into the bargain."

"Lloyd George?"

"Yes.  And the German Invasion.  There's no avoiding it."

"But it's a crime!  On an afternoon like this, when the sun is
shining...  You can't go..."

"She's driven twelve miles."

"Twelve miles in a good car!  What's that?  She'll enjoy her tea all the
more for waiting...  Couldn't we--?"

Cassandra came a step nearer, her voice sank to the thrilling note in
which of old she had concocted mischief in the schoolroom.

"Listen! ... there's a summer-house near the north gate.  It has a
locked cupboard with things for tea.  I keep them there for my especial
use...  If we ran down this path quickly... before she arrives--"

"We could have tea there together?  For goodness' sake, let's fly!"

"But your conscience?  The Nonconformist conscience?  Are you sure you
could enjoy--?"

"She's your visitor, not mine.  I have no scruples.  Only give me the
chance!"

"On your head be it!" cried Cassandra, and bending low, darted between
the shrubs towards a winding path which led in the opposite direction
from the house.  Peignton followed with eager steps.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE SKIRTS OF CHANCE.

Now that Lent was over dinner parties came on with a rush, started, as
was only discreet, with a state gathering at the Court, when the county
was invited to welcome the bride.  The Vicar and his wife were the sole
representatives of Chumley proper, but Dane Peignton was in request, as
an odd man is bound to be in the countryside.

"It will be deadly dull," Cassandra had warned her friend, "but it has
to be done.  Brace up, and go through it bravely, and if you don't like
it you need never try again."

"I won't," Grizel said frankly.  "A duty is a duty, and has to be done
whether you like it or not, but I choose my pleasures to suit myself.
If I'm amused I'll go,--if I'm not, all the saddles of mutton in the
world won't tempt me.  It always amuses me to be with you, my dear, but
judging from the specimens I've already seen, it's a very, very heavy
county.  The women are heavy in the afternoon.  I tremble to think of
what they must be in the drawing-room after dinner.  Could I do anything
to jolt them up?  Put on a black gown, or do a little skirt dancing, or
tell stories?  I could tell some awakening stories!"

But Cassandra shook her head and issued her orders.

"You are to wear your wedding dress, and behave yourself like a sweet
young bride, and do credit to yourself, and to me, and to your husband's
books!  When you go to Rome, do as the Romans do."

When the night of the dinner arrived the sweet young bride repaired to
her husband's dressing-room _en route_ from the bathroom to her own
apartment, and squatted on the floor to watch _him_ shave, with her
white gown wrapped around a foam of lacey under-garments, and her white
shoes kicked off on to the rug.  She looked young, and fresh, and
blooming, and brought with her a delicious odour of violets, and it
appeared to afford her intense satisfaction to watch Martin lather his
chin, and twist it from side to side for the convenience of the safety
razor.

"Darling, you _do_ look plain!  I love you dreadfully when I see you
shave.  All that trouble to spare me a beard! ...  Don't cut yourself,
like a precious.  I do so object to bits of cotton-wool...  Doesn't it
feel nice and married to have me sitting here, watching you, in my bare
tootsies, and knowing that even the Vicaress herself could not object?
She'll be there to-night, you know.  What will she wear?--A black satin,
cut in a V, with a pendant of agate, and a cap with an aigrette.  Dear
thing!  I must remember to enquire for the Mothers' Meeting."

Martin, his chin violently undulating, murmured a word which was
evidently of a warning nature, but Grizel took no notice.  Her hands
were clasped round her knees, she was smiling, in a soft reflective
fashion.

"No," she said slowly, "no! this first year must be just for
ourselves.--I am so thankful that Katrine is away and so happy, for our
own sakes, as well as her own.  I am thankful there are no other near
relatives to trouble about.  I don't want _Anyone_ to come between us
this first year, not even--that!  A year or two alone together we must
have, and then,--we'll pray for twins!"

Martin's sureness of hand alone saved him from the necessity of
cotton-wool.  He turned round, smiling, lathered, twinkling with humour.

"Why be so greedy?  Surely _one_--"

"No, no--two would be twice as nice.  You get on so slowly with one at a
time."  She bent her head still lower, so that her chin rested upon her
knees; her golden eyes stared into space, her shoulders heaved with a
regretful sigh.  "No," she said at last, "no!  I suppose it would not
do.  Triplets _are_ vulgar, but oh, Martin, think of it!--_three_ ducks,
all in a row, each with its long white tail, and its little ribbons
round its wrists, and its little gold sovereign hanging round its
neck...  The Queen's Bounty!  And oh, Martin, think, think! what an
advertisement for your books...  It would be in all the papers.  `Mrs
Martin Beverley, wife of the well-known novelist, yesterday became the
mother of three daughters.  (They must be daughters!)  Later enquiries
at the house elicited the news that the mother and family were all doing
well.'"

"Really, Grizel! really!" cried Martin, protesting.  "You make me
blush."

"Oh, well!"  Grizel sighed, and rose to her feet in one swift,
astonishingly agile movement.  "Bear up.  There's no use getting
agitated before the time.  It might be only twins!"

She strolled out of the room, and seating herself on the chair before
her own mirror, gave herself into the hands of the waiting maid.

"Now then, Marie, make me look like a sweet young bride."

Marie looked complacent.  It was easy to obey that order, since her
mistress was radiant with beauty and happiness, and there lay waiting on
the bed a gown, which looked as if it had been blown straight out of a
fairy tale for her adornment.  The ordinary white satin was far too dull
and substantial to have a place in its concoction.  It was a mass of
cobweb lace of extraordinary antiquity and frailness, mounted on a
lining of silver gauze.  The fine folds accentuated the reed-like
slimness of Grizel's figure, the misty indefiniteness of shading suited
to a marvel the small face, with its white cheeks and amber eyes, that
face which was at once so colourless, and so aglow.  Marie looking at
the reflection in the mirror, pushed aside the cases of jewels, and
lifting a piece of tulle swathed it lightly round her mistress' head,
allowing one long end to flow down the back.  It was unconventional, it
was daring, but the effect was irresistible, and Marie stood aside
heaving a sigh of triumph.

"No jewels.  Only the gauze.  In effect--a veil!"

So it came to pass that when Mr and Mrs Beverley made their entrance
into the great drawing-room of the _Court_, there came to one and all of
the assembled guests the impression of a creature half human, half
fairy, poised midway between heaven and earth, aglow with that absolute,
unshadowed happiness, which is seldom given to mortals to see or to
enjoy.  It was indeed the primitive note in Grizel's temperament, which
made such a condition possible.  The least introspective of mortals, she
accepted happiness as manna from heaven, throve on to-day's supply, and
confidently expected the morrow's supply.  The minor trials, which would
have dimmed the rapture of another bride, pricked her for the moment,
and were then cast aside, and dismissed from thought, as completely as
though they had never existed.  There were occasions when such
abstraction brought about material _contretemps_, but of the mental
lightening there could be no doubt.

Everyone in the room received the same impression of radiance as the
bride entered, but on the different minds the impression acted
differently.  The Vicar's wife, clad as had been foretold, in black
satin and aigretted cap, but showing a pendant of cameo, instead of
agate, on the discreet decolletage, felt a sudden unreasoning
disposition towards tears, and the good man, her husband, breathed a
mental "God keep her!" but the Hon. Mrs Mawson was distinctly shocked.
She was the Evangelical magnate whose religion seemed largely to consist
in disapproving of other people's enjoyments, and the bride's obtrusive
happiness appeared to her as a deliberate "tempting of Providence."
Moreover, she disapproved of the costume as theatrical and unusual.  Why
not satin, like everybody else?  And no jewels!  The niece of Lady
Griselda Dundas must possess jewels of price.  Then why that bare neck?
Mrs Mawson was wearing her own rubies, and took it as a personal slight
that the bride had come to meet her unadorned.

Midway between the two extremes flowed the general verdict, but Grizel
was blissfully unconscious of criticism.  She went through the necessary
greetings of acquaintances, among whom she was surprised to recognise
Teresa Mallison, and then exchanged a few words with her hostess before
leading the way to dinner on the Squire's arm.

Cassandra looked as usual, both tired and vivid; she gave a caressing
pressure to her friend's elbow, and murmured softly:

"Exquisite.  About eighteen! ...  Talk hard, Grizel, for pity's sake--
talk hard!  The atmosphere is freezing.  At the last moment Mona
Fenchurch sent a wire.  Flue.  I had to send for Teresa.  She's so good
about filling gaps."

"Oh, well!"  Grizel said significantly.  Of course Teresa was delighted
to come, especially when by good luck it was Peignton's predestined
partner who had fallen out!  She stood by his side now--flushed, silent,
a trifle gauche, for it was something of an ordeal to meet the people
who politely ignored her existence in the life of the neighbourhood.
Grizel divined something of the cause of the girl's embarrassment, and
sent her a smile of beaming friendliness.  Well! all had turned out for
the best.  Nobody wanted Mona Fenchurch for the pleasure of her company,
and her absence had paved the way to a lovers' meeting.  Captain
Peignton looked supremely content, and how sensible of the girl to stick
to blue!

Teresa, however, was not at all self-congratulatory on the subject of
her gown.  If she had had a day's notice,--even half a day, she could
have dashed up to town, and equipped herself in something newer, and
more worthy of the occasion.  She was miserably conscious that the blue
dress was past its freshness, and had already paid several visits to the
Court.

The dinner which followed was lengthy and stately.  It was also
undeniably dull!  At one end of the table Grizel chatted and leant her
elbows on the table, and kept the Squire in complacent chuckles of
laughter, but their gaiety, instead of spreading, seemed to throw into
greater contrast the forced conversations of the other guests.  With the
exception of Teresa Mallison they were all elderly people, who had
driven over many miles of country to perform a social duty, and neither
expected nor received any pleasure in its execution.  They all knew each
other, met at intervals, and discoursed together on the same well-worn
topics.  Lady Rose talked garden, and was an expert on bulbs.  Sir
George Everley, her partner, described all bulbs vaguely as daffodils,
lived simply and solely for "huntin'," and would in all probability die
for it another day.  The Vicar's partner lived for bridge, and his wife
had fallen to the share of an old general who looked upon food and drink
as the events of the moment, and had no intention of losing a good
chance.  Long years of dining out had made him an expert at the game of
starting his partner on a hobby during an interval between courses, and
then giving her her head until the next stop.  "Well! and what is the
latest good work in the parish, Mrs Evans, eh, what?" he enquired
genially, as he waited the advent of fish, and then with the help of a,
"Did you though?  God bless my soul!  Pine work! fine work!" he was left
free to enjoy his fare, and make mental notes on the flavouring of the
sauce, until such time as he had leisure to give Mrs Evans another lead
on the vexed question of the choir.

Lord Kew sat on Cassandra's left side, and threw depressed crumbs of
conversation to his companion, the stout wife of the huntin' squire.  It
was said of Lord Kew that he could not talk for five minutes together
without bringing in the German invasion, and his conviction that England
was galloping headlong to the dogs.  He prophesied as much to the
squire's wife in less than the prescribed time, and she said that
"something ought to be done," and seizing on the word "dog" introduced
to his notice her two pet Chows.  From time to time also Cassandra
helped her along with a few words, leaving Martin to make the
acquaintance of his right-hand neighbour, who had heard of his books,
and really must get them from the library.  "Do you write under your own
name?"

Teresa sat like a poker, still and silent, vouchsafing monosyllabic
replies to the formalities of a county magnate, about whom she knew
everything, but who had got it firmly impressed into his sluggish brain
that she was someone else, and accordingly insisted upon referring to
people and incidents of whom she had never heard.  Now and then came a
happy moment when Peignton gave her his attention, and smiled
encouragement into her eyes, but he was working hard to rouse a chilly
lady to animation, and even on occasion throwing an occasional bold
challenge across the table, where a couple seemed settling down into
permanent silence.

Teresa had the impression that Dane was putting aside his own amusement
as something entirely subservient to the general good.  It was almost as
though he felt a responsibility, and was working for a reward.  She
never suspected that the reward came more than once in a glance from
Cassandra's eyes, and a smile of appreciation flashed down the length of
table.  Cassandra's head and neck rose above the banked-up flowers, her
cheeks were flushed, the stars of emeralds on her throat sent out green
flames of light, she looked brilliant and beautiful, a fitting
chatelaine for the stately old house, but it was not her beauty which
appealed to Peignton's heart; it was the subtle _want_ which
mysteriously he felt able to supply.  He did not trouble himself to
enquire into the nature of this strong mutual sympathy, for he was a
practical man accustomed to do the next thing, and not trouble about the
future.

To-night Cassandra was a hostess struggling with an unusually depressing
set of guests, and he expended himself to help her.  Looking up the
length of table, Grizel's face was like a flowering shrub in an avenue
of cedars.  Peignton looked at her and felt a pang of something like
anger.  _She_ was content enough!  She had everything she wanted.
Things were cursedly unfair...

In the drawing-room Grizel as the bride was handed round for five-minute
conversations, and being in an amiable mood exerted herself to be all
things to all women.  She talked "huntin'" and she talked bridge, she
asked advice concerning her garden, she listened sweetly to details of
May Meetings, and vouchsafed copious and entirely untrue descriptions of
an author at home; only with the Vicar's wife did she allow herself the
privilege of being natural, and saying what she really meant.

Mrs Evans was elderly and stout, parochial and intensely proper.
Grizel was young and unconventional to an extreme, yet beneath the
dissimilarity there existed a sympathy between the two women which both
divined, and both failed equally to understand.

Grizel knew that Mrs Evans's brain viewed her with suspicion, but she
was complacently aware that Mrs Evans's heart was not in sympathy with
her brain.  Was it not exactly the same in her own case?  Mentally she
had pronounced the Vicar's wife a parochial bore, the type of
middle-aged orthodox, prudish woman whom her soul abhorred, but, as a
matter of fact, she did not abhor her at all, for the eyes of the soul
saw down beneath the stiffness and the propriety, and recognised a
connecting link.

"If I were in trouble, I'd like to put my head down on her nice broad
shoulder, and,--she'd like to have me there!"

"Well!" cried Grizel, sinking down in a soft little swirl of lace and
silver by the side of the chair which held the portly black satin form,
and resting one little hand on its arm with a gesture of half-caressing
intimacy.  "Well!  Are the Mothers still meeting?"

Mrs Evans preened herself, and did her honest best to look distressed.

"My dear, I am afraid you _mean_ to be naughty!"

Grizel nodded cheerily.

"I do...  Aren't you glad?  It's no use pretending to be shocked.  You
have a whole parish-full of proper people who do what they ought, and
say what they should, and I come in as a refreshing change.  Besides, I
really mean quite well!  Who knows,--after half a dozen years of Chumley
influence, I may be as douce and staid as any one of them!"

At this point the obvious thing for Mrs Evans to do was plainly to
express a hope such might be the case; she knew it, and opened her mouth
to utter the aspiration, but as she did so she inclined her head to look
down into the dimpling radiance of the bride's face, and once again her
heart softened, and she felt that mysterious pricking at the back of her
eyes.

"My dear," she said gently, "I--I think I prefer you as you are!"

Grizel did not answer, but her eyes softened, and she slipped her hand
an inch forward so that it pressed against the black satin sleeve.  She
was thinking happily that she had already two friends in Chumley,
Cassandra, and--the Vicar's wife!

Seeing a pause in the conversation, a small woman in pink satin made a
swoop for the seat next the bride, and eyed her with a bright, birdlike
smile.  This was Mrs Fotheringham (with a small "f"), a lady who
combined having nothing to say with a positively uninterrupted flow of
conversation.  She overcame the apparent difficulty by pouring forth a
flood of personal questions, from the storehouse of a curiosity which
knew no bounds.  She pounced upon Grizel now, as a hawk pounces upon its
prey.

"So pleased to meet you to-night.  So unfortunate to miss you when I
called.  I've been so longing to meet you.  Knew you so well by name.
You were Miss Grizel Dundas?"

"Yes."

"Niece of Lady Griselda?"

"Yes."

"Lived with her, didn't you?  Sort of adopted child?"

"Yes."

"All your life?"

"Yes."

"But of course you had parents?--"

"No--"

The "no" was devilment pure and simple, and gave Mrs Fotheringham what
is technically described as a "sensation."  She jerked, stared, and
finally forced a wooden laugh.

"Oh, I see.  Yes.  Stupid of me.  Died, I suppose, at your birth?"

"One after.  One before."

"How sad.  Very eccentric, wasn't she?  Lady Griselda, I mean.  I've
heard that she was exceedingly--"

"She was."

"But you got on with her?  Must have done, of course, or she would
not...  Quite attached to you, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"So nice!  And you stayed with her until her death, and married
immediately after?  It was immediately after, was it not?"

"Several months."

"So nice for you that you had Mr Beverley.  He must be a proud man.
Not many women would have given up so much.  But I'm sure you never
regret it?"

"Oh, but I do!" cried Grizel.  "_Often_!"

She was getting bored by this time, and decided that this might be a
favourable point at which to end the catechism, so she rose and strolled
across the room, leaving Mrs Fotheringham to express her consternation
to the nearest listener.

"How extraordinary!  Did you hear?  She said she _does_!"

But Mrs Evans had known the question-monger from a child, and stood
upon no ceremony.

"You had no right to put such a question, Flora.  It was impertinent.
Mrs Beverley answered in the only manner possible, by turning it into a
joke."

"I suppose so.  Yes.  It must have been a joke.  She _looks_ happy."
The birdlike eyes roved towards Martin, who had just entered the room
with the other men, and subjected him to a curious scrutiny.  "_Do_ you
think he looks worth it?"

"My dear, it is immaterial what I think!  How can any outsider judge of
the worth which another woman's husband represents to herself?  It's not
a question of credentials.  It's a question of _fit_!"

Half an hour later the Squire buttonholed Peignton in a corner of the
room, and gave him his instructions.

"I've ordered the car for Miss Mallison.  See her safely home, will you,
and take it on to your own place?  Might as well do two good turns while
it's about it."

His look gave significance to the words, and Peignton could not do less
than declare his pleasure at the suggestion.  As a matter of fact,
however, it was not pleasure of which he was conscious at that moment,
but something unaccountably like disappointment.

He had not expected the evening to end so soon; he was unwilling to be
dismissed.  Throughout the long dinner he had been subconsciously
looking forward to something to come; and he now felt defrauded and
chilled.  He had imagined that he would have had five minutes' talk with
Lady Cassandra--that they would laugh together, and in the meeting of
eyes exchange confidences which it would have been indiscreet to put
into words, but Cassandra was surrounded by guests of honour, and
apparently oblivious of his presence.

She turned with a start as he approached her with Teresa by his side,
and received the girl's adieux with a gracious smile.  "So soon!
Captain Peignton going to see you home.  That's right.  _Good_ night.
It was really noble of you to come to the rescue.  So very many thanks!"

Her manner to the girl was all that could be wished, but as she turned
to Peignton there came an unmistakable chill.  Her face, her voice, the
fleeting touch of her hand were alike cold, devoid of friendship.

Cassandra was disappointed too, and, womanlike, vented her displeasure
on her fellow-sufferer.  She also had looked forward to a few brief
moments of communion after the emptiness of the evening.  She also had
the baffled feeling of one who has waited for naught.  The while she
listened to Lady Mawson's dreary pronouncements she watched the dark
figure follow the girl from the room, and a pang pierced her heart.

"Oh, to be young!  To be young,--and to be loved!"

Peignton struggled into his coat, and muttered savagely when a stud
caught in the lining.  His usual mood was so serene that this sudden
irritability and depression was as puzzling as it was disagreeable.  He
asked himself curtly what the devil was wrong, and made a swift mental
summary of the wine consumed at dinner.  Nothing wrong, but these
elaborate feasts were not in his line.  They bored him stiff.  Another
time he would decline...

At this point Teresa made her appearance wrapped in a white opera cloak,
with her mother's best lace scarf draped over her head, and Dane's
depression lightened, as he smiled at her and took his place by her side
in the car.  He felt a pleasant sense of intimacy as the door shut, and
they were alone together speeding through the darkened park.  He had
been thinking a good deal of marriage lately, more than he had ever done
before, but he did not realise that at the same time he had been
thinking less of Teresa.  He thought of her now, warmed by her presence,
and by the natural rebound from his fit of irritation.  She looked
pretty in that white kit,--that lace over her face was uncommonly
becoming.  He had divined the difficulty of her position during the
evening, pitchforked among a number of people who as a rule ignored her
existence, and he had admired the quiet composure of her manner.  A nice
little girl.  A dear little girl.  A pretty, clever, uncommonly sensible
little girl.

Teresa looked up, met the approval in his eyes, and thrilled with
happiness.  The evening had come as an unexpected and golden ending to a
long dull day.  At tea-time she had been dismally counting over the days
which had elapsed since her last sight of Peignton, dismally realising
that no mutual engagements lay ahead, and then suddenly the summons had
arrived which had placed her by his side during the length of that long
dinner, and, best of all, ensured this _tete-a-tete_ drive in the
friendly dimness.  Surely now--if he cared at all, he would open his
heart--

But Peignton was far from such an intention; he was opening his lips to
make some casual remark, half-bantering, half-caressing, as had grown to
be his habit when with Teresa, when there suddenly came about one of
those small happenings which are monumental in their effect on life.
The chauffeur, steering out of the lodge gate, took a sharp turn, and
the inner wheels of the car descended into the ditch.  He was a skilful
driver, and as a rule careful enough, but the necessity of turning out
at night for the convenience of an insignificant guest had tried his
temper, and he was not unwilling to prejudice Miss Mallison against a
repetition of the drive.  In any case, the swerve was startling enough,
and Teresa, feeling herself sinking through space, instinctively threw
out her hands and grasped the nearest object.  For the moment she was
unconscious that that object was Dane himself; she simply found support,
and clung, and Dane's arms held her fast.  Two or three violent wrenches
followed, as the whole strength of the car struggled to mount the
incline, and meantime, locked in each other's arms, the man and the girl
swayed together, this way and that, backwards and forwards, until with a
final jerk and groan the roadway was reached.  All the time Teresa had
not uttered a sound, but now that safety was assured, a sobbing breath
quavered from between her lips.  It was a pathetic little sound, like
the sob of a child in pain, and the red lips were very near.  From pure
instinct, rather than any definite intention, Peignton bent still
nearer, and kissed those lips into silence, murmuring gentle words of
encouragement.

"Poor girl--poor dear!  It's all over...  We are all right now.  You are
not frightened, Teresa?"

He held her fast, resisting a faint movement to escape.  He did not want
her to go.  He wanted to hold her, to kiss her again, and feel her lips
tremble against his own.  The sore, wounded feeling of the evening had
disappeared, his heart was beating with strong, rapid strokes.  The
electric lamp showed the girl's face flushed and tremulous, the eyes
shyly drooping before his own.  He bent over her and whispered a
question, knowing full well what the answer would be, but wanting to
hear it, all the same.

"Are you angry with me for kissing you, Teresa?"

The girl shook her head.  Her low voice sounded young and sweet.

"Oh, no...  I'm glad!"

"Why are you glad?"

"Because you,--you _care_!" said Teresa, trembling.

For a breath Dane hesitated, and in that pause something ominous gripped
at his heart, and like a man who has made a false step on the edge of a
precipice he saw a glimpse of an abyss; but the next moment youth and
blood rose to the appeal, and he kissed the soft lips once and again,
murmuring appropriate protestations.

"Of course I care--who wouldn't?  I've cared a long time...  And you
care too?  You do care for me, Teresa?"

"Oh, _yes_!"

The answer came with a fervour which could not fail to be infectious.

"Enough--some day--to be my wife?  I wish I had more to offer you,
little girl!"

"Oh, I want nothing, I want nothing.  I would marry you if you were a
workman in a cottage.  Sooner--than a _king_!"

It was true.  The girl's voice rang with a sincerity of passion, which
was startling in its contrast to the man's light tones, and Peignton,
realising the contrast, was at once touched and abashed.

"You dear girl!" he said softly.  "Thank you, dear.  I'm not worth it,
but--I'll be good to you, Teresa!  You shall never regret it."

Teresa laughed at the absurdity of the thought.  It seemed impossible
that anything in the nature of regret, or grief, or anxiety, or even
boredom could ever again cloud her heart.  She had reached the pinnacle
of her desires.  To know that Dane loved her meant absolute, unclouded
happiness.  He would go on loving her.  Therefore she would go on being
blissful and content.  As in the fairy tales, they would be happy ever
after.  "I never knew that it was possible to be so happy!" sighed
Teresa in her heart.



CHAPTER NINE.

THE GIFT OF CREATION.

Teresa entered the quiet house, cast a look at the drawing-room door,
and realised with relief that her mother had retired to bed.  Probably
she would be awake, and would expect the returning daughter to enter her
room in passing, and give a history of the evening's adventures, but
Teresa had no intention of doing anything of the sort.  Pausing for a
moment in the hall, she took off her slippers and crept noiselessly past
the dreaded portals up to the third floor.  To-morrow morning there
would be reprisals, but she had news to tell which would speedily turn
the tide.  The flood of questions and curiosities which were bound to
flow from the maternal lips would be intolerable to-night, nevertheless
Teresa felt the need of speech.  The relief, the joy, the triumph of the
moment seemed more than she could endure alone.  She needed someone to
listen, not to talk, and Mary had been trained by long years of
self-abnegation to fill that post.

Teresa entered her sister's room and turned on the electric switch.
Mary lay asleep, her face showing yellow against the whiteness of the
pillow, her hair screwed together in a walnut-like knob at the top of
her head.  She stirred, opened listless eyes to stare at her sister, and
automatically struggled to a sitting position.

"Got back?--Do you--is there anything you want?"

Teresa sat down on the side of the bed and threw back her cloak.  In the
plainly furnished bedroom her blue dress became at once a rich and
gorgeous garment, the trifling ornament on her neck gleamed with a new
splendour; to Mary's dazzled eyes she appeared a vision of beauty and
happiness.

"What should I want?  Cocoa?  Coffee?  You funny old Martha! your
thoughts never get away from housekeeping.  I don't want anything; not
one single thing in the whole wide world.  I've got so much already that
I can hardly bear it...  Mary!  I'm engaged.  He _does_ care.  He asked
me to-night."

"Who?" asked Mary blankly, and Teresa, staring at her in indignation,
realised that, incredible as it appeared, this ignorance was real, not
feigned.  A pricking of curiosity made itself felt; since this most
obtuse of sisters had noticed nothing between herself and Dane, it would
be interesting to see whom she would select as a possible 

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