of this kind went on for a few minutes, all taking part in it except Ada.
“You are fond of the country, Miss Warren,” Asquith said at length, addressing the latter directly.
“Yes, I’m fond of the country,” was the reply, given in a mechanical way, and with a cold, steady look, whilst she ruffled the edges of her review. Asquith had found it at first difficult to determine whether the peculiarity of the girl’s behaviour were due to excessive shyness or to some more specific cause; but shyness it certainly was not, her manner of speaking and of regarding him put that out of the question. Did she, then, behave in this way to every stranger, or was he for some reason personally distasteful to her; or, again, had something just happened to disturb her temper?
“Your liking for it, though, would scarcely go to the extent of leading you to take up a solitary abode in a labourers cottage?”
“I can’t say,” Ada replied slowly. “One is often ready to do anything for the sake of being left alone.”
“Ada would stipulate, however, to be supplied with the Fortnightly or the Nineteenth Century,” put in Mrs. Clarendon laughingly.
“If anything could drive me into the desert,” was Robert’s remark, “it would be the hope of never again being called upon to look at them. I shouldn’t wonder if Mr.—Mr. Kingcote, isn’t it?—has fled from civilisation for the very same reason. Probably he has cast away books, and aims at returning to the natural state of man.”
“By no means,” said Isabel. “He has brought down quite a library.”
“Alas!” exclaimed Robert, with a humorous shaking of the head, “then he is, I fear, engaged in adding to the burden which oppresses us. No wonder he hides his head; he is writing a book.”
“Perhaps he is a poet, Mrs. Clarendon,” puts in Rhoda.
“Perhaps so, Rhoda; and some day we may have pilgrims from all corners of the earth visiting the cottage he has glorified.”
“With special omnibuses from Winstoke station,” added Robert, “and a colony of licensed victuallers thriving about the sacred spot.”
“Let us be thankful,” exclaimed Isabel, “that a poet’s fame is usually deferred for a generation or two. Ha, there’s the first luncheon bell! It brings a smile to your face, Robert.”
“Did I betray myself? I confess I breakfasted early.”
The two girls walked towards the house together, their elders following more slowly.
“Isn’t Rhoda Meres a nice girl?” said Isabel, when the object of her remark was out of hearing.
“Very,” her cousin assented, though without enthusiasm. He seemed to be thinking of something else.
“The poor child has got a foolish idea into her head; she wants to go on to the stage.”
“Does she—ha? Most young people have that idea at one time or another, I believe. In default of a special audience of one, you see——”
“And she is such a good, dear girl!” pursued Isabel, when Asquith showed no sign of continuing. “Her father is a literary man, the editor of a magazine called Ropers Miscellany—do you know it? He and I are the best of old friends. Its only with the thought of helping her father, I’m sure, that Rhoda has taken up this fancy; we must drive it out of her head somehow.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” remarked Robert, more absently than before.
Isabel glanced at him, and kept silence till they reached the house.
There was nothing remarkable about the structure itself of Knightswell; the front was long and low, built of brick faced with stone, and the level entrance was anything but imposing. The main portion of the building was early eighteenth century, but in the rear there still existed a remnant of the sixteenth century manor-house which had once stood here; the ancient hall now served as kitchen, its fine stone fireplace being filled up with an incongruous modern range. The present hall was surrounded with oak panelling, which Mr. Clarendon had obtained at the dismantling of an old house in the neighbourhood; all else of the interior had become, by successive changes, completely modernised, with the exception of an elaborate chimney-piece in the drawing-room—massive marble-work resting on caryatides—always said, though without corroborative evidence, to be a production of Grinling Gibbons. The faces of the two supporters were curiously unlike each other: on the one side it was that of a youthful maiden, who smiled, and seemed to be upraising her arms in sport; the other was an aged but not unbeautiful face, wearing an expression of long-suffering sadness, worn under the burden which the striving arms sustained. In the dining-room were a few good pictures, taken with the house from the preceding occupants. For Knightswell was not the ancestral abode of Mr. Clarendon’s family; it had passed, by frequent changes, from tenant to tenant, all inglorious. Notwithstanding his historic name, Mr. Clarendon was a novus homo; his father had begun life as an obscure stockbroker, had made a great fortune, and ended his life in a comfortable dwelling in Bayswater; his daughters, there were two, married reputably, and were no more heard of.
During luncheon Asquith was still much occupied in observing Ada Warren whenever he could unobtrusively do so. The young ladies were rather silent, and even Isabel showed now and then a trace of effort in the bright flow of talk which she kept up. Between herself and her cousin, however, there was no lack of ease; a graceful intimacy had established itself on the basis of their kinship, though not exactly that kind of intimacy which bespeaks life-long association. Their talk was of the present, or of the immediate past; neither spoke of things or people whose mention would have revived the memory of years ago.
“And what are you doing with yourself?” Mrs. Clarendon inquired, when Robert had abandoned another futile attempt to draw Ada Warren into converse.
“Upon my word,” was his reply, “I hardly know. The town; I see a good deal of it, indoors and out; it still has the charm of novelty. I can’t say that time has begun to hang heavy on my hands; in truth, it seldom does.”
“Fortunate being!”
“Yes, I suppose so. I find that people have a singular capacity for being bored; I notice it more than I used to. For my own part, I generally find a good deal of enjoyment to be got out of the present moment; the enjoyment of sound health, at lowest. You know how pleasant it is to look back on past days, even though at the time they may have seemed anything but delightful. I account for that by believing that the past always had a preponderant element of pleasure, though disturbing circumstances wouldn’t allow us to perceive it. It’s always a joy to be alive, and we recognise this in looking back, when accidents arrange themselves in their true proportion.”
He glanced at Ada; the girl was smiling scornfully, her face averted to the window.
“The present being so delightful,” said Mrs. Clarendon, “what joyous pleasures have you for the immediate future?”
“Grouse on Wednesday next,” Robert replied, after helping himself to salt in a manner which suggested that he was observant of the number of grains he took. “An acquaintance who has a moor, or a portion of one, in Yorkshire, has given me an invitation. As I have never shot grouse, I shall avail myself of the opportunity to extend my experience.”
“Promise me the pick of your first bag.” There was a project for a long drive in the afternoon; the weather was bright but sufficiently
