The departure of the Norton Wards and Sir Christopher on Monday morning left Arthur alone with the family party at Hilsey Manor. To live alone with a family is a different thing from being one of a party of visitors. The masks are off; the family life is seen more intimately, the household politics reveal themselves to the intelligent outsider. During the days which intervened between his own arrival and that of Oliver Wyse, Arthur's eyes were opened to several things; and first of all to the immense importance of Judith Arden in the household. He soon found himself wondering how it got on at all in the winter, when she was not there; he had not yet known his cousins through a winter. She was in touch with all three of them; her love for animals and outdoor things made her in sympathy with the little girl; her cheerfulness and zest for enjoyment united her with Bernadette; her dry and satiric humour, as well as her interest in books, appealed to Godfrey's temper. Thus she served, as she herself had hinted to Arthur, as an intermediary, an essential go-between; she was always building bridges and filling up chasms, trying to persuade them that they had more in common than they thought, trying to make them open their hearts to one another, and distributing herself, so to say, among them in the way best calculated to serve these ends. Arthur soon observed with amusement that she aimed at distributing him also fairly among the family—now assigning him to Margaret, now contriving for him a walk with Godfrey, then relinquishing him to Bernadette for a while, and thus employing him, as she employed herself, as a link; their common liking for him was to serve as a bond of union. It was the task of a managing woman, and he would have said that he hated managing women. But it was impossible to hate Judith; she set about her task with so much humour, and took him into her confidence about it not so much in words as by quick amused glances which forbade him to resent the way she was making use of him. Very soon he was sympathising with her and endeavouring to help in her laudable endeavour after family unity.

She still persevered in it, though she had little or no hope left, and was often tempted to abandon the struggle to preserve what, save for the child's sake perhaps, seemed hardly worth preserving. Though she actually knew nothing of how matters stood between Bernadette and Oliver—nothing either of what they had done or of what they meant to do—though she had intercepted no private communication, and surprised no secret meetings, she was sure of what Oliver wanted and of what Bernadette felt. The meaning of the change that puzzled Esther Norton Ward was no riddle to her; the touch of love had awakened the instinct to coquetry and fascination; feelings long latent and idle were once more in activity, swaying the woman's soul and ruling her thoughts. Judith had little doubt of what the end would be, whether it came clandestinely, or openly, or passed from the one to the other, as such things often did. Still, so long as there was a chance, so long as she had a card to play——! She played Cousin Arthur now—for what he was worth. After all, it was for his own good too; he was a deeply interested party. When she saw that he understood her efforts, though not how urgent was the need of them, and was glad to help, her heart went out to him, and she found a new motive for the labours she had been tempted to abandon.

She got no help from Godfrey Lisle. He was sulking; no other word is so apt to describe his attitude towards the thing which threatened him. Though he did not know how far matters had or had not gone, he too had seen a change in his wife; he had watched her covertly and cautiously; he had watched Oliver Wyse. Slowly he had been driven from indifference into resentment and jealousy, as he recognised Bernadette's feelings. He tried to shut his eyes to the possibility of a crisis that would call for all the qualities which he did not possess—courage, resolution, determination, and perhaps also for an affection which he had lost, and an understanding which he had never braced himself to attain. Since he could not or dared not act, he declared that there lay on him no obligation. He hated the idea, but it was not his. It was Bernadette's—and hers the responsibility. He "declined to believe it," as people say so often of a situation with which they cannot or are afraid to grapple. He did believe it, but declining to believe it seemed at once to justify his inaction and to aggravate his wife's guilt. Thus it came about that he was fighting the impending catastrophe with no better weapon than the sulks.

At first the sulks had been passive; he had merely withdrawn himself, gone into his shell, after his old fashion. But under the influence of his grudge and his unhappiness he went further now, not of set purpose, but with an instinctive striving after the sympathy and support for which he longed, and an instinctive desire to make the object of his resentment uncomfortable. He tried to gather a party for himself, to win the members of the household to his side, to isolate Bernadette. This effort affected his manner towards her. It lost some of its former courtesy, or at least his politeness was purely formal; he became sarcastic, disagreeable, difficult over the small questions of life which from time to time cropped up; he would call the others to witness how unreasonable Bernadette was, or to join him in ridiculing or depreciating her pursuits, her tastes, or her likings. Sometimes there was an indirect thrust at Oliver Wyse himself.

Being in the wrong on the main issue generally makes people anxious to be in the right in subsidiary matters. Bernadette, conscious of the cause of her husband's surliness, met it with perfect good-nature—behaved really like an angel under it, thought Judith with one of her bitterly humorous smiles. Arthur, a stranger to the cause of the surliness—for though he had given Oliver Wyse a thought or two on his own account, he had given him none on Godfrey's score—was troubled at it, and proportionately admired the angelic character of the response. His chivalry took fire.

"What's the matter with the old chap?" he asked Judith. "He's downright rude to her sometimes. He never used to be that."

"Something's upset him, I suppose—some little grievance. I don't think she minds, you know."

"I mind, though, especially when he seems to expect me to back him up. I'll soon show him I won't do it!"

"You'd much better not mix yourself up in it—whatever it is. It won't last long, perhaps."

"I can't stand it if it does. I shall have it out with him. The way Bernadette stands it is perfectly wonderful."

Another halo for the fair and saintly head! Judith jerked her own head impatiently. The natural woman longed to cry out: "Don't you see how clever the minx is?" Sometimes the natural woman was tempted to wish that Oliver Wyse would swoop down, carry off his prey, and end the whole situation.

But there was to be a little more of it yet, a little more time for the fascination of the new manner and the halo of imputed saintliness to work. Oliver Wyse had interrupted his visit by reason of the illness of an old uncle, to whom he had owed his start in life and whom he could not neglect. It had proved rather a long business—Bernadette read a passage from Sir Oliver's letter to the company at breakfast—but the old man was convalescent at last, and Sir Oliver would be able to leave him in three or four days more, if all went well.

"So, if I may, I'll settle provisionally to be with you next Friday," said the letter. It went on—and Bernadette also went on composedly—"So there ought to be nothing in the way of our making the motor excursion I suggested one day in the following week, if you've a mind for it then." She folded up the letter, laid it beside her, took a sip of coffee, and caught Judith's eyes regarding her with what seemed like an amused admiration. Her own glance in return was candid and simple. "I'm afraid I forget what his excursion was to be, but it doesn't matter."

"I haven't had my excursion yet," Arthur complained. "The fact is we've done hardly anything since I came."

"Well, you shall have yours to-morrow, if it's fine," Bernadette promised.

"For how long does Oliver Wyse propose to honour us?" asked Godfrey, glowering and glum at the other end of the table.

"I really don't exactly know. A week or so, I should think."

Godfrey grunted surlily. "A week too much!" the grunt plainly said. He turned to Arthur. "Yes, you'd better get your excursion while you can. When Wyse is here, we none of us get much chance at the car."

Saintliness ignored the grumble. Arthur fidgeted under it. "If you want the car, I'm sure I don't want to take it from you, Godfrey," he said rather hotly.

"Oh, I spoke in your interest. I'm not likely to be asked to go on a motor excursion!"

"You wouldn't go for the world, if you were asked," said Judith.

"It'll hold us all. Anybody can come who likes," remarked Bernadette meekly.

"That's a very pressing invitation, isn't it?" Godfrey growled to Arthur, asking his sympathy.

Little scenes like this were frequent now, though Oliver Wyse's name was not often dragged into them; Godfrey shrank from doing that often, for fear of defiance and open war. More commonly it was just a sneer at Bernadette, a "damper" administered to her merriment. But Arthur resented it all, and came to fear it, so that he no longer sought his cousin's company on walks or in his study, but left him to his own melancholy devices. The unhappy man, sensitive as he was, saw the change in a moment and hailed a new grievance; his own kinsman now his wife was setting against him!

In fact Bernadette's influence was all thrown in the other scale. It was she who prevented Arthur from open remonstrance, forbade him to be her champion, insisted that he should still, to as great a degree as his feelings would allow, be his cousin's friend and companion. She was really and honestly sorry for Godfrey, and felt a genuine compunction about him—though not an overwhelming one. Godfrey had not loved her for a long while; Oliver Wyse was not responsible for that. But she had led him to suppose that she was content with the state of affairs between them; in fact she had been pretty well content with it. Now she had changed—and proposed to act accordingly. Acting accordingly would mean not breaking his heart, but dealing a sore blow at his pride, shattering his home, upsetting his life utterly. She really wanted to soften the blow as much as possible; if she left him, she wanted to leave him with friends—people he liked—about him; with Margaret, with Judith, and with Arthur. Then she could picture him as presently settling down comfortably enough. Perhaps there was an alloy of self-regard in this feeling—a salve to a conscience easily salved—but in the main it came of the claim of habit and old partnership, and of her natural kindliness. These carried her now beyond her first delight in the drama of the situation; that persisted and recurred, but she was also honestly trying to make the catastrophe as little of a catastrophe as was possible, consistently with the effecting of its main object. So it came about that, in these last days before Oliver Wyse arrived, she thought more about her husband than she had done for years before, and treated his surliness with a most commendable patience.

Although Arthur's relations with Godfrey had thus suffered a check, his friendship with little Margaret throve; the shy child gradually allowed him an approach to intimacy. They had rambles together, and consultations over guinea-pigs and gardening. Here Arthur saw a chance of seconding Judith's efforts after family unity. Here there was room, even in his eyes—for Bernadette, though kind and affectionate in her bearing towards the child, did not make a companion of her. Inspired by this idea, he offered a considerable sacrifice of his own inclination. When the day came for his motor excursion, he proposed to Bernadette that Margaret should be of the party. "It'll be such a tremendous treat for her to be taken with you," he said.

Bernadette was surprised, amused, just a little chagrined. In her own mind she had invested this excursion with a certain garb of romance or of sentiment. It was to be, as she reckoned, in all likelihood her last long tÊte-À-tÊte (the driver on the front seat did not count) with Cousin Arthur; it was to be in some sort a farewell—not to a lover indeed, but yet to a devotee. True, the devotee was not aware of that fact, but he must know that Oliver Wyse's arrival would entail a considerable interruption of his opportunities for devotion. Arthur's proposal was reassuring, of course, in regard to his feelings, for it did not seem to her that it could come from one who was in any danger of succumbing to a passion, and once or twice in these later days a suspicion that the situation might develop in that awkward fashion had made its way into her mind. Arthur must be safe enough as to that if he were ready to abandon his long tÊte-À-tÊte! She was really glad to think that she could dismiss the suspicion. But she was also a little disappointed over her sentimental excursion—at having it turned into what was in effect a family party. Even talk about sentiment would be at a discount with Margaret there.

"It'll be rather a long day for her, won't it?" she asked.

"It'll be such a great thing to her, and we can cut it a bit shorter," he urged.

With a slight lift of her brows and a smile Bernadette yielded. "Oh, all right, then!"

"How awfully good of you!" he cried. "How awfully good of me!" would have seemed to her an exclamation more appropriate in his mouth at the moment.

The child was sent for, to hear the great news. She came and stood dutifully by her mother's knee, and Bernadette put her arm round her waist.

"Cousin Arthur and I are going for a long drive in the car. We shall take our lunch, and eat it by the road-side, and have great fun. And you're to come with us, Margaret!"

The delighted smile which was expected (by Arthur, at least, most confidently) to illuminate the child's solemn little face did not make its appearance. After a momentary hesitation, Margaret said "Yes, mummy."

"You like to come, don't you, Margaret?"

"Yes, mummy." She looked down and fidgeted her toe on the carpet. "If you wish me to."

"No, dear, I want to know what you wish. Were you going to do something else?"

"Well, Judith had promised to take me with her to Mrs. Beard's this morning, and show me Mrs. Beard's rabbits."

The tone was undeniably wistful, whether the main attraction lay in Judith, in Mrs. Beard, or in the rabbits. The combination was a powerful one in Margaret's eyes.

"And would you rather do that than come with us?" Bernadette went on, very kindly, very gently.

The toe worked hard at the carpet.

"Do just what you like, dear. I only want you to please yourself."

"If you really don't mind, mummy, I think I would rather——"

"Very well then!" Bernadette kissed her. "Run away to Judith!"

The delighted smile came at last, as Margaret looked up in gratitude at her kind mother.

"Oh, thank you so much, mummy!" And she darted off with an unusual gleefulness.

Bernadette, her part of kind mother admirably played, looked across at Arthur. He was so crestfallen that she could not forbear from laughing. His scheme a failure, his sacrifice thwarted! The father sulked; the child, with an innocent but fatal sincerity, repelled advances. Things looked bad for the unifiers! Indeed one of them had put her foot neatly through the plan devised by the other. Judith knew about the proposed excursion; clearly she had not thought it possible that Margaret would be asked to join, or she would never have arranged the visit to Mrs. Beard.

"We're unfortunate in meeting a strong counter-attraction, Arthur. We've overrated the charms of our society, I'm afraid." Though Bernadette laughed, she spoke in dry tones, and her look was malicious.

Arthur felt foolish. When once the scheme was a failure, it came to look futile, hopeless—and terribly obvious. Bernadette saw through it, of course; her look told him that.

"Oh, well, I suppose rabbits are——!" he murmured feebly.

"Rabbits—and Judith!" She rose and went to the window. "I rather think it's going to rain." Then after a pause she went on, "I think you're rather a conventionally minded person, Arthur."

He attempted no defence. She had seen through the scheme—oh, quite clearly! She was vexed too; she was frowning now, as she stood by the window.

"You can't have the same tastes and—and likings as people have just because you happen to be some relation or other to them. It's no use trying." She gave an impatient little shake of her head. She had not altogether liked the child's being asked; she liked no better the child's being unwilling to come. Little as she had wanted Margaret's company, it was not flattering to be postponed in her regard to rabbits—and Judith. Still, if the child did prefer rabbits and Judith—well, there was the comforting reflection that she could always have rabbits at a very moderate cost, and that there was no reason to apprehend that she would be deprived of Judith. What she valued least was the thing she was most likely to lose, as matters stood at present. Hurt vanity wrested the little girl's innocent sincerity into an argument for Bernadette's secret purpose.

"I don't like the look of that cloud. I'm sure it's going to rain."

Arthur glanced out of the window in a perfunctory way; he felt that he would have to accept Bernadette's view of the weather prospects, however subjective that view might be.

She was out of conceit with the excursion. All this "fuss"—as she expressed it in the primitive phraseology of inward reflection—spoilt it. She was rather out of humour even with Cousin Arthur. She did not mind Judith planning and scheming in the interests of family union; she was used to that and regarded it with an amused toleration. But she did not fancy Arthur's undertaking the same rÔle. In her conception his proper attitude was that of a thorough-going partisan and nothing else. As such, he had been about to receive the tribute of that excursion. Now she was no more inclined to it. That sort of thing depended entirely on being in the mood for it. Arthur's—well, yes, Arthur's stupidity—and Margaret's—well, yes, Margaret's ungraciousness—had between them spoilt it. She felt tired of the whole thing—tired and impatient.

"I think we'll wait for a safer day, Arthur."

"All right. Just as you like." He was hurt, but felt himself in fault and attempted no protest; he knew that she was displeased with him—for the first time in all their acquaintance.

So the car was countermanded. But the next day was no safer, nor the day that followed. Then came Friday, which was otherwise dedicated. Neither as a sentimental farewell nor as a family party did that excursion ever happen.