Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.Harry departed, and Claudia expressed her compassion to Philippa. Philippa grew hot in his defence.“Of course you like him,” said the girl. “I think he is a capital fellow, and that’s the pity of it. Yes, yes, I know. He and you are convinced that he will do very well by-and-by to reign at Thornbury, where they will touch their hats and curtsy to him, and he will send down soup when they are ill. That’s his line exactly, and it may exist in England a few years longer, but it’s on its last legs.”“Aren’t you getting rather mixed?” asked Philippa. “The soup, or the line, or what?”Claudia laughed.“You know what I mean. The old order. It had its good points, I’m quite ready to admit, but it is over, it must be put away, and a new situation faced. The People, with a capital letter.”“Aren’t we the People, with a capital letter?” murmured Miss Cartwright.“Yes, if you join the movement. Otherwise you’re only—I beg your pardon, Philippa, but I know you would hate humbug—only a fly on the wheel. You’d be swept along anyway, but you wouldn’t help.”“I’m not sure I shouldn’t have the best of it, though, except for the dust,” Philippa said meditatively. “And poor Harry! I think you are ungrateful to him when he is boldly facing the new situation on your behalf. Think of his mother’s face!”“Ah!” said Claudia, smiling. “Yes, think!”“Then won’t you admit him as one of the People?”“When he puts his shoulder to the wheel.”“I believe, if he’s wise, he’ll come and sit by my side. I’m growing more and more to prefer the fly.”“It’s natural for you,” said the girl. “It is we younger ones who are responsible for the forward movement.”Philippa winced.“Yes, my dear, I know, and God forbid that I should forget it!” she said, with a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “Only it may surprise you by-and-by to find how quickly you grow old in the eyes of the younger. Sometimes think of that, and don’t be in too great a hurry to push the old workers out of the ranks.”Claudia looked uncomfortable.“I—I didn’t mean anything of that sort.”“And I don’t mean to be pushed,” said Miss Cartwright, recovering herself with a laugh. “I flatter myself that we elders have some staying power. Take Harry, however, by all means, if you can get him to push. I dare say it will be good for him.”“That,” returned the girl, “is what I think. Of course, in a sort of way, it is easy enough to get workers—men, I mean,” she added, with a fine disdain, “one has but to lift one’s little finger. But what is the use of them? They just take it as a new variety of flirting, and haven’t an idea beyond. It simply means that so long as it amuses them they will go on, and as soon as they are tired, drop it. Oh, I know!”“She is weary with the wisdom of the ages,” Philippa said afterwards to Anne. “If you had heard that ‘Oh, I know!’ and the depth of experience it conveyed! The world is topsy-turvy, frivolity will soon become a virtue of the aged, all the merrymakings and junketings will be reserved for the end of life, we shall be the last left to pipe and dance, while youth regards us scornfully. Claudia depresses me. A hundred wrinkles have grown in my face during the past week. I am ashamed of my poor innocent jestings. If I smile, I look furtively at her to see if she disapproves. What mission has been mine? Have I ever coursed cookery through lectures, or passed the mildest of exams? I did think I knew something about housekeeping, but Claudia has proved that I work on a wrong basis, and even in that I have to write myself a miserable failure.”“Yet there is a delightful charm about her,” her sister said, disregarding this outbreak. “She is wonderfully attractive and bright.”“Bless her, yes! She’ll do well enough; she’ll find her limitations quite honestly, if not at once.”“And will she go to Thornbury?”“She’s in the mood to go anywhere, only desirous of new worlds to conquer; and she hopes to induce Harry to support the cause, without being idiotic, like other men. She is quite frank with her experiences.”Both sisters laughed.Meanwhile Claudia easily made herself at home, came and went as she liked, and refused to be bound by the slenderest of social fetters. The kindly placid circle of a cathedral town, desirous—from respect to the Miss Cartwrights—to exercise hospitable duties towards a young girl who had but just fluttered into it, and might be supposed to require encouragement and support, was absolutely paralysed by the abruptness of Claudia’s renunciation of such benefits. The Dean’s wife went so far as to ask her to dine, which, considering the plethora of young ladies, and the difficulty of providing each lady with a dignitary, or even a curate, was an attention scarcely short of the heroic. It was the more startling when a note arrived, written in an upright manly hand, and announcing that owing to professional duties, Miss Hamilton would be unable to accept any invitation.“Professional!” repeated Mrs Dean, staring at the note.“Is she a lady doctor?” hazarded her eldest daughter.“She has not that appearance,” said the Dean, with decision.“But, my dear, she must be something odd. And then to state it in such a barefaced way! A young creature not older than Rosa! Well, we have done all that could have been expected, and I can only say I am truly thankful she is not coming.”For all this, Claudia came and went contentedly, and if she had heard the speeches would have enjoyed them, as in some degree emphasising her position. Philippa laughed, and Anne smoothed over where smoothing was necessary, but Emily was ruffled, because before her young cousin’s appearance she had been considered to lead the van of progress, and she was afraid that Claudia’s Radical theories might be confounded with her own. Besides, Claudia’s scorn of leagues and friendly societies and blue ribbons was apt to be scathing; she talked socialism, and combined it with an innocent despotism contradictory enough to belong only to original woman.Mrs Hilton’s letter of invitation came enclosed in one to Philippa.“My dear Philippa (it said):—“Harry tells me you have a young cousin staying with you, who is very fond of what they call landscape gardening, and he seems to think it would amuse her to come to Thornbury. I am sure we shall be delighted to have her here, for it must be dreadfully sad for her to be alone in the world, poor thing! and if she likes flowers we have plenty, though there they are, all in their beds, and I don’t know what old Thomas will say if anybody digs them up! However, Harry can always manage. We are going to have a few friends next week, because it makes it more lively for Harry. Captain Fenwick on leave, and Ruth Baynes, and perhaps Helen Arbuthnot will come, so that your little cousin would not find it so dull.”Philippa read this to Anne with great amusement.“What would our little cousin say if she saw?”“Minnie has written.”“Not in these terms. Harry would dictate the letter to his mother.”“Harry may dictate, but he will never get Minnie to understand that Claudia is to be paid.”“Oh, well, it will be so amusing to see her awake to the fact, that, upon my word, if it weren’t that Emily’s feelings would be so dreadfully hurt if I deserted her meeting, I should be tempted to take Claudia—I beg her pardon, travel under Claudia’s wing—myself.”“That, my dear,” said Anne, laughing, “you couldn’t do. Claudia will go on her bicycle, and send her luggage.”Anne was right.“I don’t so much care about bicycling for the pleasure of the thing,” Claudia remarked. “But I much prefer it to your cross-country journeys. It is but twenty miles as the crow flies.”“You will lose your way,” said Emily.“With a map and a compass? How could I?”She made all her arrangements with exactitude, and Emily, who had prognosticated trouble for Philippa, had to own herself mistaken when Claudia wrote all the necessary notes and directions, sent off her luggage in excellent time, and came down in a very neat and well-cut dress.“You are a woman of business. You don’t leave your friends much to do for you,” said Anne, with her kind smile.“We have learned that much,” returned Claudia, pleased. “What a nuisance those poor clinging blushing women must have been, fainting away on a man’s shoulder whenever an emergency arrived!”“Stop, stop!” put in Philippa. “I won’t have the heroines of my youth abused. Each generation offers a spectacle for the next to mock at. Don’t expect to escape yourself, Claudia.”“Well, they shan’t accuse us of helplessness,” said the girl, serenely. “Can I do anything for you in the town? No? Then, good-bye.”She settled herself on her bicycle, and rode quietly away. Emily looked vexed.“She might have taken the other road. Now she will meet them all coming out of the Cathedral.”“Which she will enjoy,” said Anne, with a smile. “Come, Emily, own that she looks charming. You are a woman of adventure yourself.”Claudia enjoyed her twenty miles exceedingly. She met and scandalised the Dean’s wife, and made a much more charitable impression upon the Dean himself, who looked after her with a sigh of envy, and a glance at his own gaitered legs. She noted both expressions, laughed, and then her mind flung itself forward with the eagerness with which it always seized upon the future. She pictured Thornbury, its opportunities, its deficiencies, and its altered aspect when she, Claudia, once more took the road back to Elmslie. The people she might meet were not nearly so interesting. The road, however, was neither good nor level, and often she was obliged to confine her attention to its roughnesses. Her real sense of beauty, too, was charmed by the tremulous gladness of the day, soft sunshine veiled in sudden glooms, which yet never became threatening; a hedge-growth rich in ever-varying depths of green; shadows from bordering elms wavering gently on the road, and here and there a gate, a break in the hedge, a twist in the road, opening out some blue distance, not mellow, indeed, with the glory of southern sunshine, but tender as only an English distance can be, and sweet as its remembrance. Claudia was young, vigorous, exultant. When the road climbed so steeply that she was obliged to get off and push her bicycle, it only made a pleasant change for her young strong arms. Every now and then she consulted her map, or, sitting on a stile, glanced at the ripening corn, watched the busy rooks, and ate, with an excellent appetite, the sandwiches supplied by Anne. It was on one of these halts, on the ridge of a hill steeper and stonier than she had yet encountered, that another rider passed her, a man who looked at her keenly. He was thin, sun-browned, and clean-shaven. She criticised his dress and style of riding, without being able to find faults; she noticed, too, that his bicycle had the latest improvements, such as she would hardly have expected to find in these remote regions. Then she glanced at her map. Thornbury was near—the Thornbury which in the glow of exercise she had almost forgotten—and she guessed that he was on his way there. This interested her merely because she looked forward to asking him some questions about his bicycle, which, she owned with a sigh, was better than her own.Harry, with half a dozen dogs, was waiting for her at the lodge.“I knew it must be you whom Fenwick described,” he said joyously. “Down, Rob! How splendidly you must have come to be here in this time! I couldn’t have done it.”“Of course you couldn’t, with that thing of yours,” Claudia said disdainfully. “It’s abominably clumsy. Captain Fenwick—if that’s his name—has a beauty.”“He’s a clever fellow; he always has the best thing going,” Harry returned with a laugh. “But how jolly it is to have got you here! How’s everybody?”“I don’t believe there’s much chance since you were there last week. Is there ever any change at Elmslie?”“Oh, isn’t there!” he exclaimed, still radiant, and thinking of a change which had meant a good deal in his life. “But, come along; my mother’s expecting you, and you’ll be glad of tea. The cart has brought your things up from the station all right.”Claudia’s welcome was warm. Only Mrs Hilton and Miss Baynes were in the drawing-room. Mrs Hilton, a large fair woman, whose mouth, habit and love of her son had kept in a smiling curve, but whose eyes were faded and weary, showered hospitalities upon the girl.“My poor husband is a sad invalid, my dear, almost confined to his chair, and sadly crippled, but I hope that at dinner, perhaps—” She broke off vaguely, and Claudia was not long in discovering that Mrs Hilton’s sentences generally remained unfinished. So, probably, did her thoughts, but, as Philippa once said, her kindnesses never. “And how are our dear cousins? It was so good of them to spare you. I am only afraid, my dear, of your finding us— Well, at any rate, here is Ruth, who is always pleasant.”And she smiled at Miss Baynes, who was handing Claudia her tea.“Thank you very much,” said Claudia’s young clear voice; “but you must not think at all of me, because I shall be so busy all the time I am here with the work you are kind enough to entrust to me. And then I have my bicycle, which makes me quite independent.”Mrs Hilton gazed at her, struggling with novel ideas.“The work, my clear?” she said vaguely. “But you mustn’t talk of it as work. Harry said you were so clever in suggesting things, and, I am sure, if you can amuse yourself with our garden—but—”Claudia was sitting up, frowning.“Did not Mr Hilton explain that my profession was landscape gardening?” she said with dignity.Harry, who had foreseen the scene, and whose mouth was twitching, broke in cheerfully—“Yes, mother, you know all about it. It’s a splendid thing for Thornbury to get Miss Hamilton here. But we mustn’t forget that she’s bicycled all the way from Elmslie, and when she has had her tea, I dare say Ruth would take her to her room.”The mere suspicion of any one being tired brought out all Mrs Hilton’s tenderness.“Of course, I ought to have remembered,” she said, with compunction; “but I have such a poor head, my dear, that I leave most things to Harry. Indeed, you must go to your room. But did you really come alone on a bicycle? And Anne was not afraid to let you! Well, to-morrow you must tell me all about it.”Ruth Baynes, who carried off Claudia, was tall and slight, with a small aquiline nose and a good-tempered expression. It did not take lone to discover that she had two brothers whom she adored, and various nephews an I nieces, almost equally near her heart. Whatever Claudia said or did was capped by something they had said or done—generally better. She left her at last to peace and a bath, and no one could look fresher or less jaded than Claudia when the dinner-gong sounded.Mr Hilton took her in to dinner—a thin querulous man, bent with rheumatism, and walking by the help of a stick. To her surprise, she found that he was a scholar, deeply read and fastidious, as even she could see, in his choice of expressions. The only subject, except that of books, which appeared to interest him, was his health, which excited a constant irritability. It was impossible for her to touch upon her own hobby, because he waved it away at once.“I know nothing about the place, and I care less,” he said. “Harry is sufficiently fond of it to take that trouble off my shoulders, and I leave it all to him. Virtually he is master. If ever you should have the misfortune to be racked with rheumatism and lumbago, my dear young lady, you would find yourself quite unable to take an active part in life. So I shut myself into my library, and trouble nobody with my miseries.”Claudia thought of Mrs Hilton’s tired eyes, and wondered whether they did not tell a different tale. She found the conversation languishing, and was glad when Captain Fenwick came to the rescue, talking of some classical translation just offered to the world. She glanced at him inattentively, and looked again. If he were Harry Hilton’s friend, here, she allowed, was a stronger personality, evident at once, for Harry was fair and sturdy, while this man was wiry, tall, and dark, carrying in his brown features marks of a more adventurous, perhaps impetuous, life. As she looked, his eyes fastened themselves upon hers with a penetration which she, for an instant, resented. The next moment her indifference returned, and she answered some remark of Miss Baynes’, made across the table, with the eagerness which easily awoke in her face, and gave it a constantly varying charm.Harry was not a man of strategy, but he manoeuvred that night to prevent his mother from having anything but general conversation with her guest. The evening was rainy. Mr Hilton did not appear after dinner, and Ruth Baynes told Claudia they often did not see him for days.“He is only happy in his library,” she added, “and sometimes he cannot even get there. Everything falls on Harry.””‘Everything’ can’t be very much, I expect,” said Claudia. “He must want occupation.”“Oh, do you think so?” Miss Baynes opened her eyes. “My brother always says that the county business alone is enough for any man.”“Perhaps, as to quantity.” Her emphasis pointed the remark, but her companion only assented cheerfully, and proceeded to break fresh ground.“Are you musical?” she asked.“No. I found there was no time in which to take up music thoroughly, so I dropped it. What do you do?”“Play—sing—fiddle. I love it better than anything in the world.”Claudia’s face warmed.“Oh,” she said, sitting up and speaking energetically, “then of course you really go in for it. Do you teach?”“Teach? No,” returned the bewildered Ruth. “Why should I?”“To be of use—to spread your knowledge, to make it something more than a mere amusement. Otherwise of what good is it?”“Good? I don’t know. I think people like it,” said Ruth, vaguely.“Oh!”Claudia’s “Oh!” implied a great deal as Mrs Hilton hurried towards them.“Dear Ruth, a little music, please.” And as Miss Baynes took glad possession of the piano, Mrs Hilton murmured on to Claudia, “Ruth is so kind, always ready to play and sing, and Harry likes it so much! Do you play, my dear?”“No,” Claudia said calmly. “At one time I thought of going in for it, but I hadn’t talent enough to make it anything but a grind, with all those Dresden courses to pass.”“Must you have gone to Dresden? I don’t think that dear Ruth was ever out of England.”“But I should only have studied it in order to teach.”“My dear!” said kind Mrs Hilton, distressed. “I am sure that is very sad, at your age and all! Harry did say something, only—I had no idea! I hope, at any rate, you will take a nice holiday here, and—oh, you are much too young, dear, dear, dear!”“Please don’t be sorry,” said Claudia, touched yet triumphant. “I have no particular need to work, but we feel that we should cast in our lot with those who have, and that no one has any right to stand idle. That is our position, you know.”“And if I had been a returned convict, I should scarcely have frightened her more,” reflected the girl gleefully that night in a last sleepy retrospect which she cast on the evening. For a moment longer her thoughts lingered upon Captain Fenwick’s dominant look, then she dismissed him with a yawn.

Harry departed, and Claudia expressed her compassion to Philippa. Philippa grew hot in his defence.

“Of course you like him,” said the girl. “I think he is a capital fellow, and that’s the pity of it. Yes, yes, I know. He and you are convinced that he will do very well by-and-by to reign at Thornbury, where they will touch their hats and curtsy to him, and he will send down soup when they are ill. That’s his line exactly, and it may exist in England a few years longer, but it’s on its last legs.”

“Aren’t you getting rather mixed?” asked Philippa. “The soup, or the line, or what?”

Claudia laughed.

“You know what I mean. The old order. It had its good points, I’m quite ready to admit, but it is over, it must be put away, and a new situation faced. The People, with a capital letter.”

“Aren’t we the People, with a capital letter?” murmured Miss Cartwright.

“Yes, if you join the movement. Otherwise you’re only—I beg your pardon, Philippa, but I know you would hate humbug—only a fly on the wheel. You’d be swept along anyway, but you wouldn’t help.”

“I’m not sure I shouldn’t have the best of it, though, except for the dust,” Philippa said meditatively. “And poor Harry! I think you are ungrateful to him when he is boldly facing the new situation on your behalf. Think of his mother’s face!”

“Ah!” said Claudia, smiling. “Yes, think!”

“Then won’t you admit him as one of the People?”

“When he puts his shoulder to the wheel.”

“I believe, if he’s wise, he’ll come and sit by my side. I’m growing more and more to prefer the fly.”

“It’s natural for you,” said the girl. “It is we younger ones who are responsible for the forward movement.”

Philippa winced.

“Yes, my dear, I know, and God forbid that I should forget it!” she said, with a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “Only it may surprise you by-and-by to find how quickly you grow old in the eyes of the younger. Sometimes think of that, and don’t be in too great a hurry to push the old workers out of the ranks.”

Claudia looked uncomfortable.

“I—I didn’t mean anything of that sort.”

“And I don’t mean to be pushed,” said Miss Cartwright, recovering herself with a laugh. “I flatter myself that we elders have some staying power. Take Harry, however, by all means, if you can get him to push. I dare say it will be good for him.”

“That,” returned the girl, “is what I think. Of course, in a sort of way, it is easy enough to get workers—men, I mean,” she added, with a fine disdain, “one has but to lift one’s little finger. But what is the use of them? They just take it as a new variety of flirting, and haven’t an idea beyond. It simply means that so long as it amuses them they will go on, and as soon as they are tired, drop it. Oh, I know!”

“She is weary with the wisdom of the ages,” Philippa said afterwards to Anne. “If you had heard that ‘Oh, I know!’ and the depth of experience it conveyed! The world is topsy-turvy, frivolity will soon become a virtue of the aged, all the merrymakings and junketings will be reserved for the end of life, we shall be the last left to pipe and dance, while youth regards us scornfully. Claudia depresses me. A hundred wrinkles have grown in my face during the past week. I am ashamed of my poor innocent jestings. If I smile, I look furtively at her to see if she disapproves. What mission has been mine? Have I ever coursed cookery through lectures, or passed the mildest of exams? I did think I knew something about housekeeping, but Claudia has proved that I work on a wrong basis, and even in that I have to write myself a miserable failure.”

“Yet there is a delightful charm about her,” her sister said, disregarding this outbreak. “She is wonderfully attractive and bright.”

“Bless her, yes! She’ll do well enough; she’ll find her limitations quite honestly, if not at once.”

“And will she go to Thornbury?”

“She’s in the mood to go anywhere, only desirous of new worlds to conquer; and she hopes to induce Harry to support the cause, without being idiotic, like other men. She is quite frank with her experiences.”

Both sisters laughed.

Meanwhile Claudia easily made herself at home, came and went as she liked, and refused to be bound by the slenderest of social fetters. The kindly placid circle of a cathedral town, desirous—from respect to the Miss Cartwrights—to exercise hospitable duties towards a young girl who had but just fluttered into it, and might be supposed to require encouragement and support, was absolutely paralysed by the abruptness of Claudia’s renunciation of such benefits. The Dean’s wife went so far as to ask her to dine, which, considering the plethora of young ladies, and the difficulty of providing each lady with a dignitary, or even a curate, was an attention scarcely short of the heroic. It was the more startling when a note arrived, written in an upright manly hand, and announcing that owing to professional duties, Miss Hamilton would be unable to accept any invitation.

“Professional!” repeated Mrs Dean, staring at the note.

“Is she a lady doctor?” hazarded her eldest daughter.

“She has not that appearance,” said the Dean, with decision.

“But, my dear, she must be something odd. And then to state it in such a barefaced way! A young creature not older than Rosa! Well, we have done all that could have been expected, and I can only say I am truly thankful she is not coming.”

For all this, Claudia came and went contentedly, and if she had heard the speeches would have enjoyed them, as in some degree emphasising her position. Philippa laughed, and Anne smoothed over where smoothing was necessary, but Emily was ruffled, because before her young cousin’s appearance she had been considered to lead the van of progress, and she was afraid that Claudia’s Radical theories might be confounded with her own. Besides, Claudia’s scorn of leagues and friendly societies and blue ribbons was apt to be scathing; she talked socialism, and combined it with an innocent despotism contradictory enough to belong only to original woman.

Mrs Hilton’s letter of invitation came enclosed in one to Philippa.

“My dear Philippa (it said):—

“Harry tells me you have a young cousin staying with you, who is very fond of what they call landscape gardening, and he seems to think it would amuse her to come to Thornbury. I am sure we shall be delighted to have her here, for it must be dreadfully sad for her to be alone in the world, poor thing! and if she likes flowers we have plenty, though there they are, all in their beds, and I don’t know what old Thomas will say if anybody digs them up! However, Harry can always manage. We are going to have a few friends next week, because it makes it more lively for Harry. Captain Fenwick on leave, and Ruth Baynes, and perhaps Helen Arbuthnot will come, so that your little cousin would not find it so dull.”

Philippa read this to Anne with great amusement.

“What would our little cousin say if she saw?”

“Minnie has written.”

“Not in these terms. Harry would dictate the letter to his mother.”

“Harry may dictate, but he will never get Minnie to understand that Claudia is to be paid.”

“Oh, well, it will be so amusing to see her awake to the fact, that, upon my word, if it weren’t that Emily’s feelings would be so dreadfully hurt if I deserted her meeting, I should be tempted to take Claudia—I beg her pardon, travel under Claudia’s wing—myself.”

“That, my dear,” said Anne, laughing, “you couldn’t do. Claudia will go on her bicycle, and send her luggage.”

Anne was right.

“I don’t so much care about bicycling for the pleasure of the thing,” Claudia remarked. “But I much prefer it to your cross-country journeys. It is but twenty miles as the crow flies.”

“You will lose your way,” said Emily.

“With a map and a compass? How could I?”

She made all her arrangements with exactitude, and Emily, who had prognosticated trouble for Philippa, had to own herself mistaken when Claudia wrote all the necessary notes and directions, sent off her luggage in excellent time, and came down in a very neat and well-cut dress.

“You are a woman of business. You don’t leave your friends much to do for you,” said Anne, with her kind smile.

“We have learned that much,” returned Claudia, pleased. “What a nuisance those poor clinging blushing women must have been, fainting away on a man’s shoulder whenever an emergency arrived!”

“Stop, stop!” put in Philippa. “I won’t have the heroines of my youth abused. Each generation offers a spectacle for the next to mock at. Don’t expect to escape yourself, Claudia.”

“Well, they shan’t accuse us of helplessness,” said the girl, serenely. “Can I do anything for you in the town? No? Then, good-bye.”

She settled herself on her bicycle, and rode quietly away. Emily looked vexed.

“She might have taken the other road. Now she will meet them all coming out of the Cathedral.”

“Which she will enjoy,” said Anne, with a smile. “Come, Emily, own that she looks charming. You are a woman of adventure yourself.”

Claudia enjoyed her twenty miles exceedingly. She met and scandalised the Dean’s wife, and made a much more charitable impression upon the Dean himself, who looked after her with a sigh of envy, and a glance at his own gaitered legs. She noted both expressions, laughed, and then her mind flung itself forward with the eagerness with which it always seized upon the future. She pictured Thornbury, its opportunities, its deficiencies, and its altered aspect when she, Claudia, once more took the road back to Elmslie. The people she might meet were not nearly so interesting. The road, however, was neither good nor level, and often she was obliged to confine her attention to its roughnesses. Her real sense of beauty, too, was charmed by the tremulous gladness of the day, soft sunshine veiled in sudden glooms, which yet never became threatening; a hedge-growth rich in ever-varying depths of green; shadows from bordering elms wavering gently on the road, and here and there a gate, a break in the hedge, a twist in the road, opening out some blue distance, not mellow, indeed, with the glory of southern sunshine, but tender as only an English distance can be, and sweet as its remembrance. Claudia was young, vigorous, exultant. When the road climbed so steeply that she was obliged to get off and push her bicycle, it only made a pleasant change for her young strong arms. Every now and then she consulted her map, or, sitting on a stile, glanced at the ripening corn, watched the busy rooks, and ate, with an excellent appetite, the sandwiches supplied by Anne. It was on one of these halts, on the ridge of a hill steeper and stonier than she had yet encountered, that another rider passed her, a man who looked at her keenly. He was thin, sun-browned, and clean-shaven. She criticised his dress and style of riding, without being able to find faults; she noticed, too, that his bicycle had the latest improvements, such as she would hardly have expected to find in these remote regions. Then she glanced at her map. Thornbury was near—the Thornbury which in the glow of exercise she had almost forgotten—and she guessed that he was on his way there. This interested her merely because she looked forward to asking him some questions about his bicycle, which, she owned with a sigh, was better than her own.

Harry, with half a dozen dogs, was waiting for her at the lodge.

“I knew it must be you whom Fenwick described,” he said joyously. “Down, Rob! How splendidly you must have come to be here in this time! I couldn’t have done it.”

“Of course you couldn’t, with that thing of yours,” Claudia said disdainfully. “It’s abominably clumsy. Captain Fenwick—if that’s his name—has a beauty.”

“He’s a clever fellow; he always has the best thing going,” Harry returned with a laugh. “But how jolly it is to have got you here! How’s everybody?”

“I don’t believe there’s much chance since you were there last week. Is there ever any change at Elmslie?”

“Oh, isn’t there!” he exclaimed, still radiant, and thinking of a change which had meant a good deal in his life. “But, come along; my mother’s expecting you, and you’ll be glad of tea. The cart has brought your things up from the station all right.”

Claudia’s welcome was warm. Only Mrs Hilton and Miss Baynes were in the drawing-room. Mrs Hilton, a large fair woman, whose mouth, habit and love of her son had kept in a smiling curve, but whose eyes were faded and weary, showered hospitalities upon the girl.

“My poor husband is a sad invalid, my dear, almost confined to his chair, and sadly crippled, but I hope that at dinner, perhaps—” She broke off vaguely, and Claudia was not long in discovering that Mrs Hilton’s sentences generally remained unfinished. So, probably, did her thoughts, but, as Philippa once said, her kindnesses never. “And how are our dear cousins? It was so good of them to spare you. I am only afraid, my dear, of your finding us— Well, at any rate, here is Ruth, who is always pleasant.”

And she smiled at Miss Baynes, who was handing Claudia her tea.

“Thank you very much,” said Claudia’s young clear voice; “but you must not think at all of me, because I shall be so busy all the time I am here with the work you are kind enough to entrust to me. And then I have my bicycle, which makes me quite independent.”

Mrs Hilton gazed at her, struggling with novel ideas.

“The work, my clear?” she said vaguely. “But you mustn’t talk of it as work. Harry said you were so clever in suggesting things, and, I am sure, if you can amuse yourself with our garden—but—”

Claudia was sitting up, frowning.

“Did not Mr Hilton explain that my profession was landscape gardening?” she said with dignity.

Harry, who had foreseen the scene, and whose mouth was twitching, broke in cheerfully—

“Yes, mother, you know all about it. It’s a splendid thing for Thornbury to get Miss Hamilton here. But we mustn’t forget that she’s bicycled all the way from Elmslie, and when she has had her tea, I dare say Ruth would take her to her room.”

The mere suspicion of any one being tired brought out all Mrs Hilton’s tenderness.

“Of course, I ought to have remembered,” she said, with compunction; “but I have such a poor head, my dear, that I leave most things to Harry. Indeed, you must go to your room. But did you really come alone on a bicycle? And Anne was not afraid to let you! Well, to-morrow you must tell me all about it.”

Ruth Baynes, who carried off Claudia, was tall and slight, with a small aquiline nose and a good-tempered expression. It did not take lone to discover that she had two brothers whom she adored, and various nephews an I nieces, almost equally near her heart. Whatever Claudia said or did was capped by something they had said or done—generally better. She left her at last to peace and a bath, and no one could look fresher or less jaded than Claudia when the dinner-gong sounded.

Mr Hilton took her in to dinner—a thin querulous man, bent with rheumatism, and walking by the help of a stick. To her surprise, she found that he was a scholar, deeply read and fastidious, as even she could see, in his choice of expressions. The only subject, except that of books, which appeared to interest him, was his health, which excited a constant irritability. It was impossible for her to touch upon her own hobby, because he waved it away at once.

“I know nothing about the place, and I care less,” he said. “Harry is sufficiently fond of it to take that trouble off my shoulders, and I leave it all to him. Virtually he is master. If ever you should have the misfortune to be racked with rheumatism and lumbago, my dear young lady, you would find yourself quite unable to take an active part in life. So I shut myself into my library, and trouble nobody with my miseries.”

Claudia thought of Mrs Hilton’s tired eyes, and wondered whether they did not tell a different tale. She found the conversation languishing, and was glad when Captain Fenwick came to the rescue, talking of some classical translation just offered to the world. She glanced at him inattentively, and looked again. If he were Harry Hilton’s friend, here, she allowed, was a stronger personality, evident at once, for Harry was fair and sturdy, while this man was wiry, tall, and dark, carrying in his brown features marks of a more adventurous, perhaps impetuous, life. As she looked, his eyes fastened themselves upon hers with a penetration which she, for an instant, resented. The next moment her indifference returned, and she answered some remark of Miss Baynes’, made across the table, with the eagerness which easily awoke in her face, and gave it a constantly varying charm.

Harry was not a man of strategy, but he manoeuvred that night to prevent his mother from having anything but general conversation with her guest. The evening was rainy. Mr Hilton did not appear after dinner, and Ruth Baynes told Claudia they often did not see him for days.

“He is only happy in his library,” she added, “and sometimes he cannot even get there. Everything falls on Harry.”

”‘Everything’ can’t be very much, I expect,” said Claudia. “He must want occupation.”

“Oh, do you think so?” Miss Baynes opened her eyes. “My brother always says that the county business alone is enough for any man.”

“Perhaps, as to quantity.” Her emphasis pointed the remark, but her companion only assented cheerfully, and proceeded to break fresh ground.

“Are you musical?” she asked.

“No. I found there was no time in which to take up music thoroughly, so I dropped it. What do you do?”

“Play—sing—fiddle. I love it better than anything in the world.”

Claudia’s face warmed.

“Oh,” she said, sitting up and speaking energetically, “then of course you really go in for it. Do you teach?”

“Teach? No,” returned the bewildered Ruth. “Why should I?”

“To be of use—to spread your knowledge, to make it something more than a mere amusement. Otherwise of what good is it?”

“Good? I don’t know. I think people like it,” said Ruth, vaguely.

“Oh!”

Claudia’s “Oh!” implied a great deal as Mrs Hilton hurried towards them.

“Dear Ruth, a little music, please.” And as Miss Baynes took glad possession of the piano, Mrs Hilton murmured on to Claudia, “Ruth is so kind, always ready to play and sing, and Harry likes it so much! Do you play, my dear?”

“No,” Claudia said calmly. “At one time I thought of going in for it, but I hadn’t talent enough to make it anything but a grind, with all those Dresden courses to pass.”

“Must you have gone to Dresden? I don’t think that dear Ruth was ever out of England.”

“But I should only have studied it in order to teach.”

“My dear!” said kind Mrs Hilton, distressed. “I am sure that is very sad, at your age and all! Harry did say something, only—I had no idea! I hope, at any rate, you will take a nice holiday here, and—oh, you are much too young, dear, dear, dear!”

“Please don’t be sorry,” said Claudia, touched yet triumphant. “I have no particular need to work, but we feel that we should cast in our lot with those who have, and that no one has any right to stand idle. That is our position, you know.”

“And if I had been a returned convict, I should scarcely have frightened her more,” reflected the girl gleefully that night in a last sleepy retrospect which she cast on the evening. For a moment longer her thoughts lingered upon Captain Fenwick’s dominant look, then she dismissed him with a yawn.

Chapter Four.She awoke early and sprang up at once, fresh as the morning itself, and when she went to the window all her ambitions rushed to the front. What were people compared with those green masses in which she read promise of fame? An old place, with magnificent growth of timber, lay before her bathed in the serenity of a young day. From the lower ground a thin white mist was drifting with filmy nothingness, but the softly swelling uplands lay in beautifully rounded outlines against a clear sky, touched by a delicate sunshine, and here and there broken by depths of cool shade. Claudia looked, and drew a long breath of delight, then dressed rapidly, and was out in the park before any of the windows in the front of the house were unsealed. She glanced rapidly round her. A French garden, still in shadow, lay on the side of the house, but elsewhere only grass and trees, splendid trees, met her view. So far as she could see, chestnuts and limes predominated, although contrasts were not wanting in fir and cedar. One with the other they grew in stately order, evidently cared for, so far that there was scarcely any crowding, and the big limbs had full play and sweep. Claudia’s first impression of entire satisfaction had, by the time she had plunged into some of the leafy intricacies, given way to more complicated criticism. She walked briskly, so as to acquaint herself with the lie of the ground, and pulling out a note-book and pencil as she walked, fell to jotting down possible improvements, chiefly with a view to obtaining distant effects. Time passed rapidly in this congenial occupation, until she heard voices close at hand, and looking up, saw Harry Hilton, a keeper, and many dogs. Harry at once made for her, and Claudia closed her book with an ungrateful sigh, considering that it was he who had obtained for her this splendid opportunity for renown.“This is most surprising!” he called out joyously.“Why?” asked Claudia as crossly.“I thought I had heard you protest against early rising?”“At Elmslie. I dare say. What was there to do at Elmslie? Every square inch was occupied by somebody.”He laughed. “So it is, when one comes to think of it. I’m a lazy chap, and I suppose I don’t mind.”“I suppose you don’t. I can’t conceive how you can bury yourself here and there, and not do anything bigger in the world,” said Claudia, looking at him meditatively. Her tone only expressed wonder, but his face fell.“Don’t you like it, then?” he said, in a disappointed tone.“Oh!” she exclaimed with a change to enthusiasm, “do you mean this place? It is simply delightful. It holds the greatest possibilities, and I am longing to begin. It is far, far more beautiful than I expected; but of course it may be made more beautiful still.”He nodded. He was looking at her, at the eager light in her eyes, at her smiling lips, at the dimple so absurdly attractive. This, he was sure, was what Thornbury wanted. She went on—“May I really cut freely? Your father will not object?”He winced. Claudia did not ask whether he cared, yet to no one at Thornbury was every stick and stone of the old place so dear as to himself. His father buried himself in his books and his infirmities, and his mother saw everything through the medium of her son’s eyes. But there was not a tree, nor a patch of shadow on the grass, nor tangle of underwood, nor green sweep of bracken, nor haunt of squirrel, which Harry did not know and love.“He won’t object,” he said hesitatingly. “But—when you think you must cut, you won’t mind, will you, telling me beforehand?”“Oh no,” she said, “not in the least. I know people have fancies and prejudices, and I should not like to hurt them, of course. Now will you please go away?”“Go away! Why? Have I offended you?”“Offended me? Why should you think so?” said Claudia, opening her eyes in frank wonder. “But you forget that I am here professionally, and have my work to do.”“You’re not going to work all day!” he exclaimed in dismay.“I hope so. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not here on the same footing as your other guests—as Miss Baynes, for instance. I have only come for a purpose.”“What on earth has that to do with it?”“Everything. You really must try to see what I mean.”“I can’t,” he muttered.“Oh yes, you can. Suppose, for instance, that I were an artist come down to paint your mother’s portrait. Then you’d expect me to stick to my work, wouldn’t you?” Claudia spoke sadly and temperately, as one might to a thick-headed child.“No artist would paint all day,” he persisted obstinately.“Nor am I going to work all day. I suppose I shall eat and drink and sleep—”“And amuse yourself.”“Yes, and amuse myself, when there is nothing better to do. But even while he was doing all this, the painter would have an eye to business; he would be studying your mother’s expression, and little ways, and characteristic movements.”“Oh, well, if that’s what you’d like, I can take you all over the place, and show you everything,” said Harry with renewed cheerfulness. “Nobody knows it better than I do. There are some old oaks behind the house.”“Thanks,” said Claudia, crushingly; “but I prefer to work out ideas by myself. Do you know you have wasted a great deal of my time this morning?” She looked at her wrist as she spoke. “There is only half an hour to breakfast, and I must do the best I can with that.”He made another effort.“You’ll lose your way.”She escaped with a laugh.“If I do, I give you leave to come and hunt for me.”Harry stood looking after her, mingled feelings in his heart. Each time that he saw her he seemed to like her better, and this morning her fresh charm, the light in her eyes, and the general harmony which existed between her youth and that of the day, the sky, and the woods, affected him strongly. He found it, too, very pleasant to see the woman he was beginning to love better than any one else in the world, in the place which was so dear to him, and her admiration for his old home gave him keen satisfaction.But there were damping reflections. He had enough shrewd common sense to be aware, not only that Claudia flung no glance in the direction where he would have had her look, but that her friendliness was, to say the least, pitying. He had heard her inveigh—with the vigour she was apt to put into her lightest words—against the drones who have no purpose in the world, and something in her manner had made him fully understand that she looked on him as a drone. He felt this hard, although he did not resent it, for he was not the man to talk about himself, and she could not be expected to realise how incapable his father was of managing the estate. But he was afraid it would always weigh with her, and the thought caused him great pain. He saw no way of altering her opinion, unless it came to her spontaneously, and in the light of a discovery of her own, for no one could know Claudia, even for a week—and he remembered with surprise that he had not actually known her much longer—without perceiving that she preferred her own judgments to those of other people.It need not be thought, however, that, because Harry saw difficulties ahead, he took them to be insuperable, or even particularly alarming. Young, sturdy, healthy, he was the last man in the world to become the prey of morbid fancies. He could not forget that moment in which her hand had lain in his. He had her at Thornbury, which was present joy; she was pleased with the place, and though he had no high opinion of his own attractions, he was quite ready to hope that the place might count for something, and told himself—it must be owned with a pang—not to be such a fool as to begrudge her a free hand among the trees. Then, his reflections having mounted his spirits high, he whistled cheerily to the dogs, stuck his hands into his pockets, and walked towards the house, heroically resisting all temptations to waylay Claudia.She arrived rather late.“Here you are, my dear,” said Mrs Hilton, kindly. “How have you slept? Are you rested? Watkins said you would not let her do anything for you.”“Thank you,” said Claudia, pleasantly. “I always manage for myself.” Her morning’s round had put her into the best of humours, and she was fresh and smiling, but before breakfast was half over, longing to escape to the work which no one appeared disposed to regard gravely. Captain Fenwick, who was last of all, and dropped into the empty chair by her side, made no attempt to conceal his amusement.“You have been round the place already! Wonderful energy! And when are you really going to begin? Mayn’t we all come and help?”“Do you think you could?”“I am sure I should be a very valuable adviser.”“About as much so as I should be if I attempted to drill your men. I suppose that is the sort of thing you do?” said the girl, so quietly that he looked at her.“I am afraid that is a neat way of hinting that I should mind my own business.”Her eyes began to dance.“Perhaps.”“You cover me with confusion. But, indeed, you are mistaken. I am quite willing to learn.”“Only I did not come here to give lessons. So don’t you think we had both better keep to what we know?”He was piqued. He was accustomed to find himself popular, which, put into other words, meant courted, by women. From Claudia’s manner it was plain that the honour of becoming his instructress did not appeal to her. If she had not really been very pretty he would have turned away; as it was, he said in a tone of mock humility—“What cruelty! Do you refuse even to throw me a few crumbs?”“Oh dear no! Do they ever do any one any good? However, if they please you, and you find them about— May I ask for the mustard?”Mrs Hilton’s voice was heard, addressing Claudia.“Harry tells me you will like to have your morning to yourself, and I dare say you have letters to write, haven’t you, my dear? Anne will be wanting to hear how you got on yesterday. But after luncheon you must come for a drive, and later perhaps a little tennis? Or golf? Harry says that is what every one plays now, and I believe there are some links—isn’t that the name? or something.”“Thank you,” said Claudia. “I only care about cricket.”“Ah!” said Mrs Hilton, vaguely—“to look on at matches?”“Oh no! To play. It seems to me the one game worth anything. But, then, I never tried football.”She glanced at her hostess, delighted to see her startled face. But Harry, who was on the watch, broke in cheerfully.“Cricket? Oh, of course. Heaps of girls play nowadays.” (He did not add that his opinion of their play was low.) “I’m afraid there’s nothing good to offer you, but Hurst is sending over an eleven to-morrow to play Thornbury.”“Thank you,” said Claudia again, and more coldly.“And we shall all be expected to look on, I suppose?” remarked Miss Baynes. “We do at Walter’s. He and his boys are such first-rate cricketers, they are always in demand.”She looked round enthusiastically, but no one appeared struck with the statement.“Other people’s relations are even one degree less interesting than other people’s ailments,” murmured Captain Fenwick, so that only Claudia heard. He went on, “Well, you’ve had your choice of amusements.”“I didn’t come here to be amused.”“And you have scorned them all, pointedly.”“I!” Her face dimpled.“Don’t you ever try to gloss over your feelings? You make me afraid to offer a suggestion.”“Why?” said Claudia, looking at him with disconcerting frankness. “As it happens, there is something you shall do for me.” He smiled. “I want to look at the brake of your bicycle, it seemed to act better than mine.”“When? This morning?”“Certainly not. It must be in play-time.” She turned, for Mrs Hilton was speaking again.“Will half-past three suit you, my dear? Ruth, I know,”—nodding at Miss Baynes—“will see that Mr Hilton has all he wants, and Harry—Harry, won’t it be a good plan for us to call at the station for Helen? Yes, I thought so; we will do that, and come home in good time for tea.”Miss Baynes asked whether Miss Arbuthnot was expected.“Oh, didn’t I tell you? So like me! Yes, she is coming for a week or two—for as long as she likes to stay,” she added hospitably. “Helen almost belongs to the house, so that she will be able to help Harry.”“To help Harry?” repeated Claudia in an undertone.“To amuse you,” chuckled Fenwick. “Oh!” There was profound scorn in the “Oh!”“It’s a little the case oftoujours perdrix, isn’t it?” he went on. “But Harry’s the best fellow in the world.”“You, too!” She thought impatiently of Elmslie. “Do let us take his virtues for granted by way of a change, and tell me about Miss Arbuthnot. Who is she? And what is she like?” A new girl was a far more interesting subject to her than any mere man; the girls at the college, and the lines they took or might be expected to take, had been fertile objects of speculation for their fellow-students.“She,” said Fenwick, slowly, “is a daughter of Lord Ambleton. What is she like?” He hesitated. “How am I to answer?”Claudia opened her eyes.“Why? Is she so inscrutable?”“Inscrutable? Yes, perhaps. But just then I was reflecting on the difficulties of describing a woman to a woman without setting her against her.”“Why?” asked the girl again, coolly. “I suppose you mean that women are jealous?”“I shouldn’t venture on such plain speaking.”“I wish you would,” she said impatiently. “I hate people to be afraid to come round a corner without peeping first. As for being jealous, I don’t agree. I think women are more ready to admire women than men men.”“Of course if you think so.”“Please don’t pay silly compliments. Disagree as much as you like, and then the thing may be argued out.”“Never!”“What do you mean?”“Everything in the world has been argued, and nothing ever has been, or will be, argued out.”Claudia paused. “But that would strike at the root of all conviction,” she said doubtfully.“Oh, by no means. Yours—excuse me—is a feminine leap at conclusions. Do you really suppose that half the convictions in the world are capable of being proved by argument?”“Then,” she said, “I don’t see how they can be convictions.”“Well, experimentalise upon your own. If you are fair I suspect you’ll find more than half are backed up by nothing better than a little prejudice and a little— No, I won’t say the other thing.”“Do,” said Claudia, flushing. No one had ever spoken to her so plainly before, yet after what she had said, she could not have the satisfaction of showing her displeasure.She added quickly, “Though you know nothing of me.”“I’ve only a conviction. Are you going?”“Yes, indeed; I’ve wasted time enough.”“Even workers must eat!” returned Fenwick, maliciously, as he rose.

She awoke early and sprang up at once, fresh as the morning itself, and when she went to the window all her ambitions rushed to the front. What were people compared with those green masses in which she read promise of fame? An old place, with magnificent growth of timber, lay before her bathed in the serenity of a young day. From the lower ground a thin white mist was drifting with filmy nothingness, but the softly swelling uplands lay in beautifully rounded outlines against a clear sky, touched by a delicate sunshine, and here and there broken by depths of cool shade. Claudia looked, and drew a long breath of delight, then dressed rapidly, and was out in the park before any of the windows in the front of the house were unsealed. She glanced rapidly round her. A French garden, still in shadow, lay on the side of the house, but elsewhere only grass and trees, splendid trees, met her view. So far as she could see, chestnuts and limes predominated, although contrasts were not wanting in fir and cedar. One with the other they grew in stately order, evidently cared for, so far that there was scarcely any crowding, and the big limbs had full play and sweep. Claudia’s first impression of entire satisfaction had, by the time she had plunged into some of the leafy intricacies, given way to more complicated criticism. She walked briskly, so as to acquaint herself with the lie of the ground, and pulling out a note-book and pencil as she walked, fell to jotting down possible improvements, chiefly with a view to obtaining distant effects. Time passed rapidly in this congenial occupation, until she heard voices close at hand, and looking up, saw Harry Hilton, a keeper, and many dogs. Harry at once made for her, and Claudia closed her book with an ungrateful sigh, considering that it was he who had obtained for her this splendid opportunity for renown.

“This is most surprising!” he called out joyously.

“Why?” asked Claudia as crossly.

“I thought I had heard you protest against early rising?”

“At Elmslie. I dare say. What was there to do at Elmslie? Every square inch was occupied by somebody.”

He laughed. “So it is, when one comes to think of it. I’m a lazy chap, and I suppose I don’t mind.”

“I suppose you don’t. I can’t conceive how you can bury yourself here and there, and not do anything bigger in the world,” said Claudia, looking at him meditatively. Her tone only expressed wonder, but his face fell.

“Don’t you like it, then?” he said, in a disappointed tone.

“Oh!” she exclaimed with a change to enthusiasm, “do you mean this place? It is simply delightful. It holds the greatest possibilities, and I am longing to begin. It is far, far more beautiful than I expected; but of course it may be made more beautiful still.”

He nodded. He was looking at her, at the eager light in her eyes, at her smiling lips, at the dimple so absurdly attractive. This, he was sure, was what Thornbury wanted. She went on—

“May I really cut freely? Your father will not object?”

He winced. Claudia did not ask whether he cared, yet to no one at Thornbury was every stick and stone of the old place so dear as to himself. His father buried himself in his books and his infirmities, and his mother saw everything through the medium of her son’s eyes. But there was not a tree, nor a patch of shadow on the grass, nor tangle of underwood, nor green sweep of bracken, nor haunt of squirrel, which Harry did not know and love.

“He won’t object,” he said hesitatingly. “But—when you think you must cut, you won’t mind, will you, telling me beforehand?”

“Oh no,” she said, “not in the least. I know people have fancies and prejudices, and I should not like to hurt them, of course. Now will you please go away?”

“Go away! Why? Have I offended you?”

“Offended me? Why should you think so?” said Claudia, opening her eyes in frank wonder. “But you forget that I am here professionally, and have my work to do.”

“You’re not going to work all day!” he exclaimed in dismay.

“I hope so. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not here on the same footing as your other guests—as Miss Baynes, for instance. I have only come for a purpose.”

“What on earth has that to do with it?”

“Everything. You really must try to see what I mean.”

“I can’t,” he muttered.

“Oh yes, you can. Suppose, for instance, that I were an artist come down to paint your mother’s portrait. Then you’d expect me to stick to my work, wouldn’t you?” Claudia spoke sadly and temperately, as one might to a thick-headed child.

“No artist would paint all day,” he persisted obstinately.

“Nor am I going to work all day. I suppose I shall eat and drink and sleep—”

“And amuse yourself.”

“Yes, and amuse myself, when there is nothing better to do. But even while he was doing all this, the painter would have an eye to business; he would be studying your mother’s expression, and little ways, and characteristic movements.”

“Oh, well, if that’s what you’d like, I can take you all over the place, and show you everything,” said Harry with renewed cheerfulness. “Nobody knows it better than I do. There are some old oaks behind the house.”

“Thanks,” said Claudia, crushingly; “but I prefer to work out ideas by myself. Do you know you have wasted a great deal of my time this morning?” She looked at her wrist as she spoke. “There is only half an hour to breakfast, and I must do the best I can with that.”

He made another effort.

“You’ll lose your way.”

She escaped with a laugh.

“If I do, I give you leave to come and hunt for me.”

Harry stood looking after her, mingled feelings in his heart. Each time that he saw her he seemed to like her better, and this morning her fresh charm, the light in her eyes, and the general harmony which existed between her youth and that of the day, the sky, and the woods, affected him strongly. He found it, too, very pleasant to see the woman he was beginning to love better than any one else in the world, in the place which was so dear to him, and her admiration for his old home gave him keen satisfaction.

But there were damping reflections. He had enough shrewd common sense to be aware, not only that Claudia flung no glance in the direction where he would have had her look, but that her friendliness was, to say the least, pitying. He had heard her inveigh—with the vigour she was apt to put into her lightest words—against the drones who have no purpose in the world, and something in her manner had made him fully understand that she looked on him as a drone. He felt this hard, although he did not resent it, for he was not the man to talk about himself, and she could not be expected to realise how incapable his father was of managing the estate. But he was afraid it would always weigh with her, and the thought caused him great pain. He saw no way of altering her opinion, unless it came to her spontaneously, and in the light of a discovery of her own, for no one could know Claudia, even for a week—and he remembered with surprise that he had not actually known her much longer—without perceiving that she preferred her own judgments to those of other people.

It need not be thought, however, that, because Harry saw difficulties ahead, he took them to be insuperable, or even particularly alarming. Young, sturdy, healthy, he was the last man in the world to become the prey of morbid fancies. He could not forget that moment in which her hand had lain in his. He had her at Thornbury, which was present joy; she was pleased with the place, and though he had no high opinion of his own attractions, he was quite ready to hope that the place might count for something, and told himself—it must be owned with a pang—not to be such a fool as to begrudge her a free hand among the trees. Then, his reflections having mounted his spirits high, he whistled cheerily to the dogs, stuck his hands into his pockets, and walked towards the house, heroically resisting all temptations to waylay Claudia.

She arrived rather late.

“Here you are, my dear,” said Mrs Hilton, kindly. “How have you slept? Are you rested? Watkins said you would not let her do anything for you.”

“Thank you,” said Claudia, pleasantly. “I always manage for myself.” Her morning’s round had put her into the best of humours, and she was fresh and smiling, but before breakfast was half over, longing to escape to the work which no one appeared disposed to regard gravely. Captain Fenwick, who was last of all, and dropped into the empty chair by her side, made no attempt to conceal his amusement.

“You have been round the place already! Wonderful energy! And when are you really going to begin? Mayn’t we all come and help?”

“Do you think you could?”

“I am sure I should be a very valuable adviser.”

“About as much so as I should be if I attempted to drill your men. I suppose that is the sort of thing you do?” said the girl, so quietly that he looked at her.

“I am afraid that is a neat way of hinting that I should mind my own business.”

Her eyes began to dance.

“Perhaps.”

“You cover me with confusion. But, indeed, you are mistaken. I am quite willing to learn.”

“Only I did not come here to give lessons. So don’t you think we had both better keep to what we know?”

He was piqued. He was accustomed to find himself popular, which, put into other words, meant courted, by women. From Claudia’s manner it was plain that the honour of becoming his instructress did not appeal to her. If she had not really been very pretty he would have turned away; as it was, he said in a tone of mock humility—

“What cruelty! Do you refuse even to throw me a few crumbs?”

“Oh dear no! Do they ever do any one any good? However, if they please you, and you find them about— May I ask for the mustard?”

Mrs Hilton’s voice was heard, addressing Claudia.

“Harry tells me you will like to have your morning to yourself, and I dare say you have letters to write, haven’t you, my dear? Anne will be wanting to hear how you got on yesterday. But after luncheon you must come for a drive, and later perhaps a little tennis? Or golf? Harry says that is what every one plays now, and I believe there are some links—isn’t that the name? or something.”

“Thank you,” said Claudia. “I only care about cricket.”

“Ah!” said Mrs Hilton, vaguely—“to look on at matches?”

“Oh no! To play. It seems to me the one game worth anything. But, then, I never tried football.”

She glanced at her hostess, delighted to see her startled face. But Harry, who was on the watch, broke in cheerfully.

“Cricket? Oh, of course. Heaps of girls play nowadays.” (He did not add that his opinion of their play was low.) “I’m afraid there’s nothing good to offer you, but Hurst is sending over an eleven to-morrow to play Thornbury.”

“Thank you,” said Claudia again, and more coldly.

“And we shall all be expected to look on, I suppose?” remarked Miss Baynes. “We do at Walter’s. He and his boys are such first-rate cricketers, they are always in demand.”

She looked round enthusiastically, but no one appeared struck with the statement.

“Other people’s relations are even one degree less interesting than other people’s ailments,” murmured Captain Fenwick, so that only Claudia heard. He went on, “Well, you’ve had your choice of amusements.”

“I didn’t come here to be amused.”

“And you have scorned them all, pointedly.”

“I!” Her face dimpled.

“Don’t you ever try to gloss over your feelings? You make me afraid to offer a suggestion.”

“Why?” said Claudia, looking at him with disconcerting frankness. “As it happens, there is something you shall do for me.” He smiled. “I want to look at the brake of your bicycle, it seemed to act better than mine.”

“When? This morning?”

“Certainly not. It must be in play-time.” She turned, for Mrs Hilton was speaking again.

“Will half-past three suit you, my dear? Ruth, I know,”—nodding at Miss Baynes—“will see that Mr Hilton has all he wants, and Harry—Harry, won’t it be a good plan for us to call at the station for Helen? Yes, I thought so; we will do that, and come home in good time for tea.”

Miss Baynes asked whether Miss Arbuthnot was expected.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? So like me! Yes, she is coming for a week or two—for as long as she likes to stay,” she added hospitably. “Helen almost belongs to the house, so that she will be able to help Harry.”

“To help Harry?” repeated Claudia in an undertone.

“To amuse you,” chuckled Fenwick. “Oh!” There was profound scorn in the “Oh!”

“It’s a little the case oftoujours perdrix, isn’t it?” he went on. “But Harry’s the best fellow in the world.”

“You, too!” She thought impatiently of Elmslie. “Do let us take his virtues for granted by way of a change, and tell me about Miss Arbuthnot. Who is she? And what is she like?” A new girl was a far more interesting subject to her than any mere man; the girls at the college, and the lines they took or might be expected to take, had been fertile objects of speculation for their fellow-students.

“She,” said Fenwick, slowly, “is a daughter of Lord Ambleton. What is she like?” He hesitated. “How am I to answer?”

Claudia opened her eyes.

“Why? Is she so inscrutable?”

“Inscrutable? Yes, perhaps. But just then I was reflecting on the difficulties of describing a woman to a woman without setting her against her.”

“Why?” asked the girl again, coolly. “I suppose you mean that women are jealous?”

“I shouldn’t venture on such plain speaking.”

“I wish you would,” she said impatiently. “I hate people to be afraid to come round a corner without peeping first. As for being jealous, I don’t agree. I think women are more ready to admire women than men men.”

“Of course if you think so.”

“Please don’t pay silly compliments. Disagree as much as you like, and then the thing may be argued out.”

“Never!”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything in the world has been argued, and nothing ever has been, or will be, argued out.”

Claudia paused. “But that would strike at the root of all conviction,” she said doubtfully.

“Oh, by no means. Yours—excuse me—is a feminine leap at conclusions. Do you really suppose that half the convictions in the world are capable of being proved by argument?”

“Then,” she said, “I don’t see how they can be convictions.”

“Well, experimentalise upon your own. If you are fair I suspect you’ll find more than half are backed up by nothing better than a little prejudice and a little— No, I won’t say the other thing.”

“Do,” said Claudia, flushing. No one had ever spoken to her so plainly before, yet after what she had said, she could not have the satisfaction of showing her displeasure.

She added quickly, “Though you know nothing of me.”

“I’ve only a conviction. Are you going?”

“Yes, indeed; I’ve wasted time enough.”

“Even workers must eat!” returned Fenwick, maliciously, as he rose.

Chapter Five.Miss Arbuthnot, when she appeared, awoke no remembrances of the college. She was a woman of past thirty, large, massive, and sleepy-looking. Claudia saw the meeting between her and Captain Fenwick, and was struck by the idea that they rather disliked each other. No two persons, indeed, could have presented a greater contrast.After the first morning, Fenwick exerted himself to give a personal touch to the conversations he held with Claudia, and it surprised him to find how much he cared to speak to her, since, as he reflected, it was very like running your head against a stone wall. Until now he had always avoided women with opinions and prejudices; it is true that he had not hitherto met them accompanied by a dimple, or eyes which grew brilliant in their eager enthusiasm, but the real attraction lay in the girl’s absolute indifference. He was so accustomed to impress that, when he failed, he was like a hypnotist fighting against a strong will, there was something which had to be overcome. That Claudia should come and go without casting a glance in his direction, that no gleam of pleasure lit her face when he chose the seat next to hers, was an affront to his vanity. Almost unconsciously he began to study her more attentively, and to mark her likes and dislikes. As she announced them with careless freedom, this was not difficult, but it was less easy to please her, even when he had found them out.Harry Hilton arrived at the same rueful conclusion by another road.Heroic were the sacrifices he made in order that Claudia’s plans might sweep freely in whatever direction she chose to extend them. There were two limes which she condemned—not, as she owned, without regret—and after the order had been given for their downfall, Harry rode away immediately after breakfast, and did not return until dinner-time. He told himself that he was an idiotic fool, but, do what he would, all day the broad shadow of the great branches haunted him, and he heard in fancy every stroke of the axe. Claudia, who was unusually well satisfied with her day’s work, greeted him eagerly.“You don’t know what a splendid opening we’ve got. I am longing for you to see and acknowledge it.”“They are down?” said poor Harry, trying to speak cheerily.“Yes, quite.” Then she laughed. “I wasn’t going to wait, when you might have changed your mind, for you did not altogether agree with me, you know. But I was certain it would be the greatest improvement imaginable, and, even if it was a sacrifice,”—she was still smiling—“art is made up of sacrifice, isn’t it?”“Is it?” he said humbly.“Why do I talk to him like that, when he hasn’t a glimmer of understanding about art or anything beyond the commonplace, poor fellow?” reflected Claudia. Aloud she said, “When you see it to-morrow morning, you will be glad that I was firm.”And then she nodded and went away.In an armchair close by, Miss Arbuthnot was sitting. She looked lazily up.“Harry,” she said, “you might take me in to dinner for once instead of your father. All my wits have gone out into the suburbs this evening, and as you never had any, you won’t miss them.”“All right,” he agreed, rather dejectedly. “There’s the gong.”He hoped to sit next Claudia, but Fenwick was too quick for him.“Never mind,” said Miss Arbuthnot, “or if you do mind, bear it. Life, like art, is made up of sacrifices, and for once you might put up with me, particularly as I, too, should prefer you to be somebody else.”“Who?” He stared.“Oh, you expect too much. Do you suppose it is the vicar? I am not going to talk about myself; when I do I like to have my wits at home, and, as I told you, they are out visiting. You are a much more simple subject, and as we are old friends, almost as old as you and the lime trees, I should like to know why you are allowing that little girl to ride you rough-shod?”He did not answer, and she asked, with a touch of anxiety—“Now, Harry, you’re not pretending to be affronted with me?”“Affronted? No.”“But you’ve tumbled into love?”“Is there anything surprising in that?” he said in rather an injured tone.She took no notice of the question beyond remarking, with a sigh—“No, I don’t in the least believe in heredity.”“What are you up to now?” he inquired resignedly.“If there were anything in it, don’t tell me that, after centuries of falling in love, and out of it, man would not have developed some sort of understanding how to do it.”“That’s evolution,” said Harry.“Imagine your knowing! Well, whatever it is, does nothing tell you what is labour lost?”He looked at her. “You mean I’ve no chance?”“You put things so baldly! Can’t you see for yourself that nobody has any chance—yet? Your Claudia is launched on a career; it mayn’t be a big one, but for concentration and determination, or any other five-syllabled things, commend me to a young woman on a career. She hasn’t a thought to fling on anything else.”“It won’t last,” he said stubbornly.“That’s the first gleam of intelligence you’ve shown. No, it won’t last, because there are tendencies, eternal tendencies, in us, which decline to be ignored, and one day she will have to face them. But not yet.”“Fenwick gets on with her a lot better than I do,” remarked Harry, with apparent inconsequence.There was a pause.“He has more experience,” she said lightly.“Ah, you don’t like him, you don’t do him justice. He’s an awfully clever fellow, quite different from the Johnnies she’d generally meet. It’s natural she should prefer him.” He spoke dejectedly, and she laughed.“I’ve never set you up on a pinnacle for admiration, have I? Itisquite natural, only it isn’t the case. He may be occupied with her,” she added a little bitterly, “but at present she’s taken up with herself.”Harry fired.“Oh, you women! Now, I call it an awfully plucky thing to break away and strike out a line for herself.”“Oh, so do I,” said Helen, with a sigh of unexpected meekness. “It’s like bicycling—a splendid prerogative of youth. All that I’m trying to impress upon you is that while it lasts, it’s absorbing. And much gratitude I get!”“Oh, I’m grateful. Only—”“What?”“You’re clever, and you laugh at everything, until it’s a bit hard to find out what you mean. I wonder why you say all this?”“For old acquaintance sake,” she said quickly and kindly. “When things become serious I’m not such a bad sort.”“And you’ll really be on my side?”“Of course I will. Let me see themenu, and don’t cheer up so preposterously. What I want you to realise is that nothing, no one, can be of any use just now. I don’t expect you to believe me, and you’ll probably rush in and blunder the whole affair; I only warn you that if you’re wise you’ll give your young woman time to trip along cheerfully on her career, and to find out for herself that it isn’t all she expected. And I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, this may cost you more lime trees.”“I don’t care a hang what it costs!”“You mustn’t use bad words, or I shall have your mother down on me.”His spirits rose.“You haven’t told me what you think I’d better do.”“Where’s the use, when you’ll do the contrary? My endeavour will be to introduce a little common sense on your side, and a little romance on hers. Be thankful for one thing.”“What?”“That she’s not a market-gardener. Market-gardening excludes romance. I defy you to make any running over a lot of cabbages. Now, trees, dewy lawns, grass rides—upon my word, they should have possibilities. Don’t get cross. I’m quite serious.” Something interrupted, but before dinner was ended, Harry, who had apparently been storing observations, said in a low voice—“I say, do you expect me to look on and see Fenwick make all the running?”There was another momentary hesitation on Miss Arbuthnot’s part before she said with a groan—“Oh, the density of the male mind! Won’t you understand that all Miss Hamilton’s aspirations are bound up in that pocket-book to which I see her refer when she has got rid of you all? On the day the pocket-book disappears, I shall hope for you. Meanwhile, minister to her career; that is the best you can do, and all you can do. And it is so funny, that you ought to be extremely obliged to me for treating it seriously.”He looked at her and laughed, and showed his trust in her discernment by avoiding Claudia for some days almost too pointedly. He rode away each morning and did not come back for hours, buried himself in the study with his father, or took Fenwick off to the next town. Mrs Hilton became uneasy for the amusement of her guests, and it was in vain that her son assured her they preferred being left to their own devices. Helen was tired after a London rush.“I am not talking about Helen,” she said almost fretfully. “She is very well able to look after herself. And Ruth can make herself at home anywhere. But there is little Miss Hamilton.”“Take my word for it, mother, she likes to go her own way.”“My dear, you can’t know about a young girl, and I am so afraid she thinks we may consider her to be in a sort of derogatory position here. I do wish you would let me explain to her, poor thing, that we are delighted to have her, and that she can do just as she likes if it’s any amusement to her. I was afraid you might be vexed about the trees, but if you and your father are satisfied, it is all quite right.”Harry laughed.“Oh, she doesn’t in the least suppose she’s doing anything derogatory. Things are changed in these days, mother, and Miss Hamilton wants you to understand that her being here is a simple matter of business.” Mrs Hilton lifted her hands helplessly.“My dear Harry, it can’t be! Of course if the poor girl is so sadly poor—”“She isn’t.””—Or if she has taken it into her head to amuse herself.”“Don’t let her hear you!”“One would do everything one possibly could. But you can’t expect me to have a pretty young creature like that here, and not try to make it pleasant for her, and we all know what girls like, and how pleased they are with attention, poor things! I really think, Harry, she ought not to be left so much alone.”He dug his hands into his hair, and laughed again—not quite naturally.“Well, we’ll see.”But though he said little, his heart was leaping. Women were women all the world over, and why should not his mother be as right as Helen Arbuthnot? Might he not in these last days have been playing the fool, and losing ground? It suddenly struck him—and he flushed at the thought—that he had been wanting in pluck, hanging back, and letting Captain Fenwick amuse himself—for he knew him well enough to be convinced that he meant nothing more. He jumped up, and went to a window which overlooked the small French garden. Beyond it the ground swept softly upwards towards a belt of fine trees, and beneath them Claudia was standing bare-headed, her hands clasped behind her. Harry looked, hesitated, turned away, and turned again. It was too much. Helen Arbuthnot and her counsels of prudence were flung on one side, he put his hand on the window-sill and vaulted out, enthusiastically followed by Vic and Venom, the terriers.Claudia had been working for an hour with profound satisfaction to herself. Perhaps she had never been so happy in her life as in these last days at Thornbury. The sense of importance, the freedom from control, the range of ever-extending possibilities, were delightful, but beyond and above these causes for satisfaction there was the joy of youth, and a freshness which is its pleasant attribute, and puts it into delightful harmony with open-air nature. For the present it was as Miss Arbuthnot had divined; she needed nothing else, and would resent an unwelcome intrusion of disturbing elements. It was no less true that at some near time, and possibly at an unexpected moment, this tranquillity might be shattered, but by whom and when was as yet a problem. Was it by Harry, who now came towards her, walking as quickly as if he had just successfully accomplished the aim of a day’s search? She put up her hand.“Two hundred feet by thirty,” she remarked meditatively.“How are you getting on? Don’t you want something? Mayn’t I come and help?” He put the questions breathlessly.“Please don’t interrupt. At last I do think I have got the proportions right.”“But I shan’t interfere with them?”“You do rather.” She glanced at him with a laugh of which she immediately had the grace to feel ashamed. Harry’s proportions might not be the best in the world, but she liked him very much indeed, and owed him kindliness. “You may stay if you won’t interrupt.”“I won’t.”“Then, look here,” she said. “I’m going to sacrifice all these low shrubs, straighten that curve, cut down two or three unimportant trees, and—do you know what will come of it?”“Not in the least,” he said with his eyes on her.“Guess.”“I can’t.”She reflected impatiently that he was really dreadfully dense.“You will see the Marldon hills.”“Really?” What did he care for all the hills in the country?“Yes, really,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “I thought it might be so, and I have proved it. Why, it will be the most beautiful view in the whole neighbourhood, and I don’t think any one could have believed it possible.”Her eyes sparkled enthusiastically, her hat lay on the ground before her, and the wind tossed her dark hair. Harry looked at her, worshipping, with a sudden contempt for Miss Arbuthnot. What did his heart tell him? What was earth and air crying out? What were the birds singing? Love—love—love—and he—he only—must remain dumb, dull, cowardly. His voice shook with the effort he made to keep back the universal cry.“Aren’t you tired? St— stop for a little while,” he stammered.If she had been thinking of him, or even if her mind had been taken up less with her own interests, she could not have failed to notice something hoarse and strained in his voice, but she heard nothing.“Not exactly tired,” she said lightly; “but perhaps—well, I do feel that I have done a good morning’s work, and I am glad, because when this is finished, I must be going on.”“Going on! What for?” he exclaimed so abruptly that this time she looked at him in surprise. But she did not see, and laughed.“Why, to work, of course. Thornbury is a fascinating old place.”“You like it?” he interrupted eagerly.“Of course I do.” She felt she owed him a tribute. “I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed what I have done here, but—one comes to an end. You don’t want me to cut down all your trees, do you?”With that his head whirled.“Sit down,” he said, pointing to a fallen trunk on which she had already experimented, and Claudia, still unsuspecting, seated herself, pushing back her hair with both hands—a trick she had.“I suppose I am rather tired, after all, and certainly hot,” she allowed, drawing a deep breath; “but what delightful work it is!”“You’ve really enjoyed it?”“Of course I have, and you have let me alone, which people can’t understand is what one wants. I am going next to a place called Huntingdon Hall. Friends of Captain Fenwick have got it, and he says it requires putting to rights terribly, and they haven’t an idea how to set about it. I have heard from Lady Wilmot and have sent her my terms. I expect it will be quite straight sailing. Captain Fenwick says so.”He scarcely heard. Love, love, love—everything was singing it tumultuously.“Claudia!” he cried.

Miss Arbuthnot, when she appeared, awoke no remembrances of the college. She was a woman of past thirty, large, massive, and sleepy-looking. Claudia saw the meeting between her and Captain Fenwick, and was struck by the idea that they rather disliked each other. No two persons, indeed, could have presented a greater contrast.

After the first morning, Fenwick exerted himself to give a personal touch to the conversations he held with Claudia, and it surprised him to find how much he cared to speak to her, since, as he reflected, it was very like running your head against a stone wall. Until now he had always avoided women with opinions and prejudices; it is true that he had not hitherto met them accompanied by a dimple, or eyes which grew brilliant in their eager enthusiasm, but the real attraction lay in the girl’s absolute indifference. He was so accustomed to impress that, when he failed, he was like a hypnotist fighting against a strong will, there was something which had to be overcome. That Claudia should come and go without casting a glance in his direction, that no gleam of pleasure lit her face when he chose the seat next to hers, was an affront to his vanity. Almost unconsciously he began to study her more attentively, and to mark her likes and dislikes. As she announced them with careless freedom, this was not difficult, but it was less easy to please her, even when he had found them out.

Harry Hilton arrived at the same rueful conclusion by another road.

Heroic were the sacrifices he made in order that Claudia’s plans might sweep freely in whatever direction she chose to extend them. There were two limes which she condemned—not, as she owned, without regret—and after the order had been given for their downfall, Harry rode away immediately after breakfast, and did not return until dinner-time. He told himself that he was an idiotic fool, but, do what he would, all day the broad shadow of the great branches haunted him, and he heard in fancy every stroke of the axe. Claudia, who was unusually well satisfied with her day’s work, greeted him eagerly.

“You don’t know what a splendid opening we’ve got. I am longing for you to see and acknowledge it.”

“They are down?” said poor Harry, trying to speak cheerily.

“Yes, quite.” Then she laughed. “I wasn’t going to wait, when you might have changed your mind, for you did not altogether agree with me, you know. But I was certain it would be the greatest improvement imaginable, and, even if it was a sacrifice,”—she was still smiling—“art is made up of sacrifice, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” he said humbly.

“Why do I talk to him like that, when he hasn’t a glimmer of understanding about art or anything beyond the commonplace, poor fellow?” reflected Claudia. Aloud she said, “When you see it to-morrow morning, you will be glad that I was firm.”

And then she nodded and went away.

In an armchair close by, Miss Arbuthnot was sitting. She looked lazily up.

“Harry,” she said, “you might take me in to dinner for once instead of your father. All my wits have gone out into the suburbs this evening, and as you never had any, you won’t miss them.”

“All right,” he agreed, rather dejectedly. “There’s the gong.”

He hoped to sit next Claudia, but Fenwick was too quick for him.

“Never mind,” said Miss Arbuthnot, “or if you do mind, bear it. Life, like art, is made up of sacrifices, and for once you might put up with me, particularly as I, too, should prefer you to be somebody else.”

“Who?” He stared.

“Oh, you expect too much. Do you suppose it is the vicar? I am not going to talk about myself; when I do I like to have my wits at home, and, as I told you, they are out visiting. You are a much more simple subject, and as we are old friends, almost as old as you and the lime trees, I should like to know why you are allowing that little girl to ride you rough-shod?”

He did not answer, and she asked, with a touch of anxiety—

“Now, Harry, you’re not pretending to be affronted with me?”

“Affronted? No.”

“But you’ve tumbled into love?”

“Is there anything surprising in that?” he said in rather an injured tone.

She took no notice of the question beyond remarking, with a sigh—

“No, I don’t in the least believe in heredity.”

“What are you up to now?” he inquired resignedly.

“If there were anything in it, don’t tell me that, after centuries of falling in love, and out of it, man would not have developed some sort of understanding how to do it.”

“That’s evolution,” said Harry.

“Imagine your knowing! Well, whatever it is, does nothing tell you what is labour lost?”

He looked at her. “You mean I’ve no chance?”

“You put things so baldly! Can’t you see for yourself that nobody has any chance—yet? Your Claudia is launched on a career; it mayn’t be a big one, but for concentration and determination, or any other five-syllabled things, commend me to a young woman on a career. She hasn’t a thought to fling on anything else.”

“It won’t last,” he said stubbornly.

“That’s the first gleam of intelligence you’ve shown. No, it won’t last, because there are tendencies, eternal tendencies, in us, which decline to be ignored, and one day she will have to face them. But not yet.”

“Fenwick gets on with her a lot better than I do,” remarked Harry, with apparent inconsequence.

There was a pause.

“He has more experience,” she said lightly.

“Ah, you don’t like him, you don’t do him justice. He’s an awfully clever fellow, quite different from the Johnnies she’d generally meet. It’s natural she should prefer him.” He spoke dejectedly, and she laughed.

“I’ve never set you up on a pinnacle for admiration, have I? Itisquite natural, only it isn’t the case. He may be occupied with her,” she added a little bitterly, “but at present she’s taken up with herself.”

Harry fired.

“Oh, you women! Now, I call it an awfully plucky thing to break away and strike out a line for herself.”

“Oh, so do I,” said Helen, with a sigh of unexpected meekness. “It’s like bicycling—a splendid prerogative of youth. All that I’m trying to impress upon you is that while it lasts, it’s absorbing. And much gratitude I get!”

“Oh, I’m grateful. Only—”

“What?”

“You’re clever, and you laugh at everything, until it’s a bit hard to find out what you mean. I wonder why you say all this?”

“For old acquaintance sake,” she said quickly and kindly. “When things become serious I’m not such a bad sort.”

“And you’ll really be on my side?”

“Of course I will. Let me see themenu, and don’t cheer up so preposterously. What I want you to realise is that nothing, no one, can be of any use just now. I don’t expect you to believe me, and you’ll probably rush in and blunder the whole affair; I only warn you that if you’re wise you’ll give your young woman time to trip along cheerfully on her career, and to find out for herself that it isn’t all she expected. And I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, this may cost you more lime trees.”

“I don’t care a hang what it costs!”

“You mustn’t use bad words, or I shall have your mother down on me.”

His spirits rose.

“You haven’t told me what you think I’d better do.”

“Where’s the use, when you’ll do the contrary? My endeavour will be to introduce a little common sense on your side, and a little romance on hers. Be thankful for one thing.”

“What?”

“That she’s not a market-gardener. Market-gardening excludes romance. I defy you to make any running over a lot of cabbages. Now, trees, dewy lawns, grass rides—upon my word, they should have possibilities. Don’t get cross. I’m quite serious.” Something interrupted, but before dinner was ended, Harry, who had apparently been storing observations, said in a low voice—

“I say, do you expect me to look on and see Fenwick make all the running?”

There was another momentary hesitation on Miss Arbuthnot’s part before she said with a groan—

“Oh, the density of the male mind! Won’t you understand that all Miss Hamilton’s aspirations are bound up in that pocket-book to which I see her refer when she has got rid of you all? On the day the pocket-book disappears, I shall hope for you. Meanwhile, minister to her career; that is the best you can do, and all you can do. And it is so funny, that you ought to be extremely obliged to me for treating it seriously.”

He looked at her and laughed, and showed his trust in her discernment by avoiding Claudia for some days almost too pointedly. He rode away each morning and did not come back for hours, buried himself in the study with his father, or took Fenwick off to the next town. Mrs Hilton became uneasy for the amusement of her guests, and it was in vain that her son assured her they preferred being left to their own devices. Helen was tired after a London rush.

“I am not talking about Helen,” she said almost fretfully. “She is very well able to look after herself. And Ruth can make herself at home anywhere. But there is little Miss Hamilton.”

“Take my word for it, mother, she likes to go her own way.”

“My dear, you can’t know about a young girl, and I am so afraid she thinks we may consider her to be in a sort of derogatory position here. I do wish you would let me explain to her, poor thing, that we are delighted to have her, and that she can do just as she likes if it’s any amusement to her. I was afraid you might be vexed about the trees, but if you and your father are satisfied, it is all quite right.”

Harry laughed.

“Oh, she doesn’t in the least suppose she’s doing anything derogatory. Things are changed in these days, mother, and Miss Hamilton wants you to understand that her being here is a simple matter of business.” Mrs Hilton lifted her hands helplessly.

“My dear Harry, it can’t be! Of course if the poor girl is so sadly poor—”

“She isn’t.”

”—Or if she has taken it into her head to amuse herself.”

“Don’t let her hear you!”

“One would do everything one possibly could. But you can’t expect me to have a pretty young creature like that here, and not try to make it pleasant for her, and we all know what girls like, and how pleased they are with attention, poor things! I really think, Harry, she ought not to be left so much alone.”

He dug his hands into his hair, and laughed again—not quite naturally.

“Well, we’ll see.”

But though he said little, his heart was leaping. Women were women all the world over, and why should not his mother be as right as Helen Arbuthnot? Might he not in these last days have been playing the fool, and losing ground? It suddenly struck him—and he flushed at the thought—that he had been wanting in pluck, hanging back, and letting Captain Fenwick amuse himself—for he knew him well enough to be convinced that he meant nothing more. He jumped up, and went to a window which overlooked the small French garden. Beyond it the ground swept softly upwards towards a belt of fine trees, and beneath them Claudia was standing bare-headed, her hands clasped behind her. Harry looked, hesitated, turned away, and turned again. It was too much. Helen Arbuthnot and her counsels of prudence were flung on one side, he put his hand on the window-sill and vaulted out, enthusiastically followed by Vic and Venom, the terriers.

Claudia had been working for an hour with profound satisfaction to herself. Perhaps she had never been so happy in her life as in these last days at Thornbury. The sense of importance, the freedom from control, the range of ever-extending possibilities, were delightful, but beyond and above these causes for satisfaction there was the joy of youth, and a freshness which is its pleasant attribute, and puts it into delightful harmony with open-air nature. For the present it was as Miss Arbuthnot had divined; she needed nothing else, and would resent an unwelcome intrusion of disturbing elements. It was no less true that at some near time, and possibly at an unexpected moment, this tranquillity might be shattered, but by whom and when was as yet a problem. Was it by Harry, who now came towards her, walking as quickly as if he had just successfully accomplished the aim of a day’s search? She put up her hand.

“Two hundred feet by thirty,” she remarked meditatively.

“How are you getting on? Don’t you want something? Mayn’t I come and help?” He put the questions breathlessly.

“Please don’t interrupt. At last I do think I have got the proportions right.”

“But I shan’t interfere with them?”

“You do rather.” She glanced at him with a laugh of which she immediately had the grace to feel ashamed. Harry’s proportions might not be the best in the world, but she liked him very much indeed, and owed him kindliness. “You may stay if you won’t interrupt.”

“I won’t.”

“Then, look here,” she said. “I’m going to sacrifice all these low shrubs, straighten that curve, cut down two or three unimportant trees, and—do you know what will come of it?”

“Not in the least,” he said with his eyes on her.

“Guess.”

“I can’t.”

She reflected impatiently that he was really dreadfully dense.

“You will see the Marldon hills.”

“Really?” What did he care for all the hills in the country?

“Yes, really,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “I thought it might be so, and I have proved it. Why, it will be the most beautiful view in the whole neighbourhood, and I don’t think any one could have believed it possible.”

Her eyes sparkled enthusiastically, her hat lay on the ground before her, and the wind tossed her dark hair. Harry looked at her, worshipping, with a sudden contempt for Miss Arbuthnot. What did his heart tell him? What was earth and air crying out? What were the birds singing? Love—love—love—and he—he only—must remain dumb, dull, cowardly. His voice shook with the effort he made to keep back the universal cry.

“Aren’t you tired? St— stop for a little while,” he stammered.

If she had been thinking of him, or even if her mind had been taken up less with her own interests, she could not have failed to notice something hoarse and strained in his voice, but she heard nothing.

“Not exactly tired,” she said lightly; “but perhaps—well, I do feel that I have done a good morning’s work, and I am glad, because when this is finished, I must be going on.”

“Going on! What for?” he exclaimed so abruptly that this time she looked at him in surprise. But she did not see, and laughed.

“Why, to work, of course. Thornbury is a fascinating old place.”

“You like it?” he interrupted eagerly.

“Of course I do.” She felt she owed him a tribute. “I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed what I have done here, but—one comes to an end. You don’t want me to cut down all your trees, do you?”

With that his head whirled.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing to a fallen trunk on which she had already experimented, and Claudia, still unsuspecting, seated herself, pushing back her hair with both hands—a trick she had.

“I suppose I am rather tired, after all, and certainly hot,” she allowed, drawing a deep breath; “but what delightful work it is!”

“You’ve really enjoyed it?”

“Of course I have, and you have let me alone, which people can’t understand is what one wants. I am going next to a place called Huntingdon Hall. Friends of Captain Fenwick have got it, and he says it requires putting to rights terribly, and they haven’t an idea how to set about it. I have heard from Lady Wilmot and have sent her my terms. I expect it will be quite straight sailing. Captain Fenwick says so.”

He scarcely heard. Love, love, love—everything was singing it tumultuously.

“Claudia!” he cried.

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