that of age, desirable; but what was age when it came to all the other desirabilities? Her father had rebuked her once for speaking of him as old Dr. Abbot, and had informed her the Master was only sixty, and that everybody was sixty—that is, said the Bishop, everybody of any sense. He was not a widower, he was pleasant to look at in a shaven iron-grey way, he was brilliantly erudite, and extremely well off apart from his handsome salary, one of the handsomest salaries in the gift of the Crown. Several years before, when Judith was still invisible in a pinafore, he had stayed at the Palace—it was then Ingeborg spoke of him as old—and had been treated by her father with every attention and respect: He had on that occasion seemed glad to go. Now it appeared he had been again, and must have fallen immediately—and overwhelmingly in love with Judith for his short visit to bridge the distance between a first acquaintance and an engagement. Who, however, knew better than herself how quickly such distances can be bridged?
She wanted to go and kiss Judith and say sweet things to her, but her feet seemed unable to move. She wanted to congratulate everybody with all her heart if only they would be kind and congratulate her a little, too. For Judith had heard what she said before her father came in, and her mother had heard it, and the room was heavy with the uttered name of Dremmel.
She looked round at them—her father waiting for her to show at least ordinary decency and feeling, Judith so safe in the family's approval, so entirely clear from hidden things, her mother lying with closed eyes and expressionless face, and she suddenly felt intolerably alone.
"Oh, oh—" she cried, holding out her hands, "doesn't anybody love me?"
This was worse than her toothache.
Her family had endured much during those days, but at least there was a reason then for the odder parts of her behaviour. Now they were called upon to endure the distressing spectacle of a hitherto reserved relative letting herself go to unbridledness. Ingeborg was going to make a scene; and a scene was a thing that had never yet, anyhow not during the entire Bullivant period, been made in that house.
Mrs. Bullivant shut her eyes tighter and tried to think she was not there at all.
Judith turned red and again became absorbed in the teapot.
The Bishop, after the first cold shock natural to a person called upon to contemplate nakedness where up to then there had been clothes, put down his cup on the nearest table and, with an exaggerated calm, stared.
They all felt intensely uncomfortable; as uncomfortable as though she had begun, in the middle of the drawing-room, to remove her garments one by one and cast them from her.
"This is very sad, Ingeborg," said the Bishop.
"Isn't it—oh, isn't it—" was her unexpected answer, tears in her eyes. She was so tired, so frightened. She had been travelling hard since the morning of the day before. She had had nothing to eat for a time that seemed infinite. And yet this was the moment, just because she had betrayed herself to her mother and Judith, in which she was going to have to tell her father what she had done.
"It is the most distressing example," said the Bishop, "I have ever seen of that basest of sins, envy."
"Envy?" said Ingeborg. "Oh, no—that's not what it is. Oh, if it were only that! And I do congratulate Judith. Judith, I do, I do, my dear. But—father, I've been doing it too."
It was out now, and she looked at him with miserable eyes, prepared for the worst.
"Doing what, Ingeborg?"
"I'm engaged, too."
"Engaged? My dear Ingeborg."
The Bishop was alarmed for her sanity. She really looked very strange. Had they been giving her too much gas?
His tone became careful and humouring. "How can you," he said quietly, "have become engaged in these few days?"
"Much may happen in a week," said Ingeborg. It jumped out. She did try not to say it. She was unnerved. And always when she was unnerved she said the first thing that came into her head, and always it was either unfortunate or devastating.
The Bishop became encased in ice. This was not hysteria, it was something immeasurably worse.
"Be so good as to explain," he said sharply, and waves of icy air seemed to issue from where he stood and heave through the room.
"I'm engaged to—to somebody called Dremmel," said Ingeborg.
"I do not know the name. Do you, Marion?"
"No, oh, no," breathed Mrs. Bullivant, her eyes shut.
"Robert Dremmel," said Ingeborg.
"Who are the Dremmels, Ingeborg?"
"There aren't any."
"There aren't any?"
"I—never heard of any," she said, twisting her fingers together. "We usedn't to talk about—about things like more Dremmels."
"What is this man?"
"A clergyman."
"Oh. Where is he living?"
"In East Prussia."
"In where, Ingeborg?"
"East Prussia. It—it's a place abroad."
"Thank you. I am aware of that. My education reaches as far as and includes East Prussia."
Mrs. Bullivant began to cry. Not loud, but tears that stole quietly down her face from beneath her closed eyelids. She did not do anything to them, but lay with her hands clasped on her breast and let them steal. What was the use of being a Christian if one were exposed to these scenes?
"Pray, why is he in East Prussia?" asked the Bishop.
"He belongs there."
Again the room seemed for an instant to hold its breath.
"Am I to understand that he is a German?"
"Please, father."
"A German pastor?"
"Yes, father."
"Not by any chance attached in some ecclesiastical capacity to the Kaiser?"
"No, father."
There was a pause.
"Your aunt—what did she say to this?"
"She didn't say anything. She wasn't there."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I haven't been at my aunt's."
"Judith, my dear, will you kindly leave the room?"
Judith got up and went. While she was crossing to the door and until she had shut it behind her there was silence.
"Now," said the Bishop, Judith being safely out of harm's way, "you will have the goodness to explain exactly what you have been doing."
"I think I wish to go to bed," murmured Mrs. Bullivant, without changing her attitude or opening her eyes. "Will some one please ring for Richards to come and take me to bed?"
But
