When, after dinner, Mrs. Devereux had told her young friend that she was uncomfortable, there had been no need of the words; but the slow answering “I know” with which Mrs. Wilmot expressed sympathy was not intended to imply that she shared the feeling. She herself was not at all uncomfortable, because, while she saw the whole state of affairs, she was not unhopeful of coping with it. Touching the place where the tender point of her breast lay nestling, she assured herself that she could hope. But Mrs. Devereux, moving about in worlds not realised, was incensed. Nothing that followed during the next few days served to clear the surcharged air. It is hard to say what vexed her most, where all was as it should not be. Ingram, bluntly unconscious of her sufferings, gloomed over his own; Chevenix spied about for what he could not find, spy as he would, and made the cause of woe more conspicuous than ever. As for her, the disastrous fair, the deliberation with which she went about her duties, and ease with which she did or caused them to be done; her self-possession, gentleness, suavity, yes! and benevolence, were sights to make angels weep. Tears of blood! If Mrs. Devereux, by any means, could have compressed tears of blood, they had been shed. Nothing less vivid would have met the case: to exhibit her scarlet handkerchief to Ingram with a “There, see, I weep. Tears of blood!” Day by day in that mild spring weather, under pale blue skies, fanned by zephyrs, she could but pace the terrace walks, and stiffen herself, and stare about her—with dull disapproval for the very flowers, lest theirs, too, should be frail beauty, and repeat for her only comfort that she was most uncomfortable. So she was. But it was because she did not understand, not because she did. Curiosity ravaged her.

On one of these days, breakfast over at half-past ten, young Mr. Chevenix declared his intention with cheerfulness and point. “Twentieth of April—Dizzy's birthday, or Shakespeare's. Nevile, I'm going to fish your river. They are leaping like the boys in Eugene Aram, and I'm going to give them something to leap at. Now, what are all you people going to do? Because, I'll be free with you, I don't want you to come and look on. Mrs. Devereux, I let you off. You needn't gillie me. Nevile, you run away and play. Amuse Mrs. Wilmot. Do now: she likes it. I'm all right.”

The elder lady fixed him keenly with a look which saw through his saucy assurance; Ingram's eyes sought those of Mrs. Wilmot across the table. She lent him their wonder for a moment, then looked down at her bosom. He was satisfied. There were still women in the world.

“What shall we do?” he asked her. “Will you be driven? Will you drive? Will you ride?” Another shaft rewarded him, which said, “Do with me as you will.”

Ingram rang the bell. Minnie appeared. “Tell Frodsham, the horses at a quarter past eleven. I ride Sea-King, Mrs. Wilmot Lorna Doone. He had better come—or Butters will do. That's all.”

Mrs. Devereux had been ignored, but was not displeased. It showed, at least, that Ingram knew she was not to be disposed of like a white rabbit. It was, however, necessary to say something, to declare one's presence, as it were; so she collected her papers. “I have letters to write. You will excuse me, I know.”

Chevenix sprang to the door. “By George, I should think so,” he said, which was well intended, but too brisk. He bowed her out, shut her out, and stood with his eyes on the others.

Ingram remained before the fire looking out of window. “She's in a wax. I don't know why.”

“Oh, don't you, my boy?” said Chevenix to himself.

Mrs. Wilmot trifled with her tea-spoon. “And I don't care—much,” he added. Mrs. Wilmot smiled.

Mr. Chevenix, going a-fishing, saw, as he had intended to see, Sanchia in the rose-garden, talking to Struan Glyde, who was tying ramblers. “Morning, Sanchia—morning, Glyde!” Each greeted him, but the youth grimly.

He talked at large. “I'm for murder. I must flesh my steel. It's too good a day to lose. Clouds scurry, sun is shy; air's balmy: a trout must die. That is very nearly poetry, Sancie. It is as near poetry as I can hope to get this side the harps and quires. Now, what on earth is Clyde doing to his roses at this time of year?”

The dark-skinned, sharp-chinned young man, aproned and shirt-sleeved, turned a shade darker. His black eyes glowed. He was quietly arrogant, even to her. “It doesn't matter,” he had once told her, “what you say or do. I love you, and that's the sum and end of it.” Now he allowed her to answer for him.

“There was a wind in the night which tore them about. I asked him to make them safe. I hate to think of their bruised ribs.”

Chevenix whistled his satisfaction with this and all things else. “I see. Works of mercy. There's a blessing on that, somewhere and somewhen. All to the good, you know, Clyde. You never know your luck, they tell me.” He left Clyde and his roses, and turned to the young lady. “Well now, look here, Sancie—if works of mercy are toward, what d'you say to one on your own account? Here I stand, an orphan boy, upon my honour. The master's gone riding with the widow.” He stopped his rattle, as a thought struck him serious for a moment. “By George, and he's a widower—so he is!” Discharged of that, he resumed—“Yes, and Mrs. Devereux has got the hump, as they say—and here I am at your mercy, to be made much of. Who's going to admire me? Who's going to hold my net? Who's going to say, 'Oh, what a beauty!'” He had now got her thoroughly at her old ease with him. Her eyes gleamed, and there was no doubting her smile. “Now, I'll tell you what. Your roses are all right. Glyde will see to that. You leave that to Glyde and his strong right arm. His strength is as the strength of ten, because... you follow me, I think? Now, Sancie, I put it to you—I'm an old friend of the family, and haven't seen you for—how many years? Aren't you going to give me half-an-hour of your morning?”

He pleaded by looks. He was quizzical, but in earnest. Her brow was clear.

“Yes,” she said. “I'll come—for half-an-hour.”

“Right! Right, goddess of the silver brake. Come, hold the pass with me.” He turned to go, and she caught him up. “I mix my poets like salad, but that's because I'm in such high spirits. By Jove, Sancie, it is good to see you again.” She met his laughing eyes with hers. She swam by his side—took his net, and was happy. Her face glowed. She had the power of casting troubles behind, recuperative power, resiliency. Glyde, the olive-faced, watched them down the walk, and owned to a heart of lead. “As well shut down the west wind as a spirit like hers!” He turned to his affair.

Below the steps, in the nut-walk which led to the bridge, Chevenix altered his tone. “It's good of you to come with me, Sancie, my dear. I'm a very friendly beggar, and Nevile, you know—I say!” and he turned her a sober face—“You know, I suppose? His wife—eh? Dead, you know. Oh, but of course you did!”

She met him unfalteringly. “Yes, he told me.”

Chevenix shrugged. “I must say, you know—what? Oh, of course, it was a ghastly affair all along. But you know all that, as well as I do. Why, her temper! Oh, awful! I've seen her myself dead-white in one of her rages—she had hold of a wine-glass so hard that it snapped, and cut her hand. She looked at the blood—she didn't know how it happened. And he—well, you ought to know—was as bad, in his way. 'Pon my soul, Sancie, Vesuvius might just as well have married Etna—every bit. But there! What's the good of talking! Everybody knew how it would be.” Words failing him, he stared about him.

“But still—oh, damn it all! To hear of your wife's death—casually—on a platform—from a chap you happen to know—happen to have met somewhere—oh, well, I call it casual. That's the word, I believe—casual. Well, it is pretty casual—what? Now, just tell me what you think—between friends, of course.”

She stopped him: she was short in the breath. “I think not. If you don't mind.”

He became as serious, immediately, as he was capable of being. “I'll do as you like, my dear—but you'll let me say this, that if I could see you with all your belongings about you again, I should sing a hymn. That's all, Sancie; but it means a lot. When you went out of Great Cumberland Place, it became, somehow, another kind of place. I hardly ever go there now, you know. And now they're all married but you, and—I say, you heard that Vicky had a son and heir? Did you hear that?”

She had averted her face, but she listened intensely, nodding her head. “Yes, yes, I knew that. Papa told me. He always writes to me, you know; from the office, poor darling!”

She appealed to him urgently. “Please don't talk about them just yet. Please don't.”

He saw the mist in her eyes, and was afraid. “All right, Sancie, all right. I'm frightfully sorry. Beastly painful all this, you know.” He was much disturbed. To his simple soul a fine day, a fine-fettled river demanded, as of right, a happy mood in man, for whom all things were made. And a fine girl by his side, a good, a brave, a splendid girl—down on her luck—on such a day! What could one do? If, when you began, she choked you off! Wouldn't meet you half-way—bottled it up! And here he was, geared for fishing, and without the heart to wet a line, because of all this misery. Sanchia, sharply in profile to him, from cheek to chin, from shoulder to low breast, all one sinuous, lax, beautiful line, broke in on his rueful meditations. “There's a rise,” she said. “Look, look.”

His eye swept the river. “You're right. By Gad, that's a whacker. That's a fish. Now, you stop just where you are, net in hand. Don't move, and you shall see something.”

He left her, and ran stooping down the bank, all his little soul concentrated in his cast. The dimpled water ran and swirled, the line flashed in the sun. Three casts, four; a splash, a taut line, and his shout, “Come on, quick; I've got him.” Sanchia glided swiftly down the bank, her eyes alight, the lines of neck and shoulder finely alert. Her eyes shone, her lips parted; she looked the Divine Huntress to whom Senhouse had once likened her. She stooped, the net jerked; she watched, waited, tense to the act. Within the swirling water the great fish plunged: she watched, strung to the pounce; the net dipped and darted; she lifted it to land.

Chevenix admired. “By George, you are a one—er, I must say! Born to it. You strike like an osprey. That's a fish—what?” They peered together into the net, where, coiled and massy, beaming rose and pale gold, the trout writhed.

“Splendid!” breathed Sanchia, glowing and alight.

Chevenix gloried in her beauty. “If Nevile don't know what his chances are—if he ain't on his knees—my heavens, what a mate for a chap!”

A shadow falling upon him caused him to look up. Mrs. Devereux, grey and tall, boa'd, gloved, umbrella'd, stood regarding him and his companion from the bank. Instinct prompted him immediately to screen Sanchia by dragging her into the party. He held up the net and plunged. “First prize,” he cried out, as heartfully as he could, “to me and Miss Percival.”

“So I see,” said Mrs. Devereux. “Ah, good morning.”

This was to Sanchia's bland greeting, which, as always, made the lady shiver. It is difficult to say what a shock it was to her to be greeted cheerfully by Sanchia. To see one in so painful a situation occupied by anything less painful, interested in anything at all, was truly shocking. Mrs. Devereux's idea of irregularity was that it absorbed the devoted victim, kept her aghast. If it did not, surely, there was no reward left to the virtuous. But here we had a highly irregular young woman behaving with extreme regularity. Was the world turning upside down? Was black, then, really white? She shivered, she blinked her eyes; but she descended the bank and stood beside the pair, yet rigidly apart.

Chevenix, having got her there, knew not what to do with her. It seemed to him that he had better, on the whole, go on, so turned the lady a knowing face.

“This is not the first time by any means that Miss Percival and I have gone fishing, you must know. We began by tickling 'em—we were urchins together, you see.”

“Really!” said Mrs. Devereux, who still saw nothing but depravity.

“I remember,” he went on, “the first time we went fishing. I was at Alnmouth with a governess; awful lonely little beggar I was. I used to moon about on the sands, while she read the Morning Post, with spectacles and a red parasol. And I used to hanker about all the other young 'uns, and wish I was one of 'em. Her party was there, you know—five of 'em, all girls and all pretty girls—eh, Sancie? I would have given my hopes of heaven—if I'd had any, you know—to go and paddle with 'em. Jolly party you were, my dear—jolly old plump papa, rosy mamma—and Philippa like a young tree, and Melusine and Hawise bright as apples; and then Vicky and you—little dears, you were. I was like a spent salmon, I believe, lantern jawed, hollow-eyed little devil, as solitary as sin.” He turned, flushed, to Sanchia, and put his hand on her arm; she turned away her face, and Mrs. Devereux believed she saw tears. “It was you who took me in, you know.”

“No,” said Sanchia, turning him her shining eyes. “It was Vicky. She asked you to come fishing.” He accepting her ruling.

“Bless me, it was Vicky. Always a frisky one. But after that it was always you and Vicky and me. And we had the time of our lives—at least, I did.” Even Mrs. Devereux felt an emotion from the beam with which Sanchia rewarded him—a tender, compassionate look, as if she understood and excused him.

“You are old friends, I see,” she said; and her smile was not unfriendly.

Chevenix shook his head wisely. “Frightfully old—I've known 'em all—all my life.” Mrs. Devereux then made a distinct advance.

“It must be very nice for you,” she said to Sanchia.

Sanchia's eyes were now clear, and her smile absolutely general. “To see Mr. Chevenix? Yes, indeed.” She collected herself. “But I'm afraid I must go now. I've a great deal to do.” She admonished the young man. “Now you had better catch some more,” she told him. “I must go.”

His face fell—without any regard for Mrs. Devereux—to “Oh, I say!” but it was then revealed to him that there might be a part for him to play. “Right, Sancie—you're mistress here. See you later.” He met her eyes gallantly, and lifted his hat. Sanchia bent her head to Mrs. Devereux, and went staidly away, her duties gathering in her brows. The elder lady and the young man stood face to face without speaking. Then Mrs. Devereux sat deliberately down, and Chevenix braced himself.

“You said just now,” the lady began, “to Miss Percival, that she was mistress here. What did you mean by that, exactly?”

Chevenix sprang sideways to this flank attack. “Oh, you know, Mrs. Devereux! you can't take a chap—literally—what?”

He wanted time; but she gave him none. “You must forgive an old woman of the world—of a certain world. I come here—to a house which belonged to Nevile's father, an old, old friend, and I find—installed—a young lady—who does not dine—who is extremely capable. I am bewildered, naturally.”

Chevenix's “I know, I know,” and his friendly nods ran on as an accompaniment.

“And then,” said she, raising her voice, “I find that this young lady—and you—are old friends. You speak of her—people—as if they were really—of the sort which—as if she were—of the kind—whom—” It was impossible. “Really,” she said, “it's most unusual. I don't frankly know what I ought to do.”

Chevenix listened carefully to her truncated phrases, where what she did not say was the most eloquent part of her discourse. He nodded freely and sagely; he was conciliatory, but clear in opinion. “I know, I know,” he said. “It's very rum—you must naturally find it so. I know exactly how you feel about it. Oh, rum's the only word for it. Or rummy. Yes, you might call it rummy—or a go, you know—or anything like that.” Then he grew plausible. “But I'm sure it's all right. It's a long story, but I'm quite sure. You've no idea what a fine girl that is. Ah, but I know it.” He tapped his forehead. “I saw the whole thing through—from beginning to end. She's a perfect beauty, to begin with.”

That was a bad note. Mrs. Devereux asked him at once if he thought that a good reason. “Well,” he said, “I do, you know—in a way. I can't explain it—but I think you see it in her face, you know—and manner. Yes, in her manner. She's uncommon, you see, most uncommon. And as cool as—well, it would be hard to say how cool a hand I thought her.” He paused, having got off this effective estimate, round-eyed and triumphant.

“It seems to me, Mr. Chevenix,” said the dry lady, “that the less you say the better.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Devereux, not at all.” He was eager to explain. “I don't think you quite follow me. What I meant to say was, that when a young woman can be as cool as she can be; can run a big place like this, and manage a staff of servants,—outdoors, mind you, and in; no steward, only a bailiff; keep all the accounts; and hold her head up—for she does that, you know, uncommonly well; why, then I say that she must be allowed the benefit of the doubt, you know. You must say, 'Well, it's rum, it's rummy,' or how you like to put it—'but she's got a head on her shoulders, and I suppose she knows what she's doing. I suppose she's seen her way.' For she's all right, you know, Mrs. Devereux; she's as right as rain. It's irregular, dashed irregular—but, by George, I'll tell you this, Nevile was in a bad way when he first met her; and she's pulled him through. He's steady enough now, is Nevile. Don't drink—nor do other things. He threatened to be a waster in his day; but he's no waster now. She did that, you know; she pulled him through. Why, bless your heart, Mrs. Devereux, he used to rave about her—rave, and chuck himself about on sofas, and cry like anything, and bite his nails down. There never was such a girl under heaven, he used to say. He called her a goddess. Love! Oh, Lord! And I assure you, on my solemn oath, that he never did a better day's work in his life, nor any girl a finer, than when he put in his word for himself, poor devil, and she said, 'Yes, I'll do it.'”

“Did she—” Mrs. Devereux asked, or began to ask, and he shrugged, and exclaimed,

“Ah! There you have me. Now you've done it. I don't know. That's the fact—I don't know. Everybody thought so. She went on as if she did; but now,—no, I don't know. You see, she's such a cool hand, she's such a deep one—you can't tell. There's no telling with that sort. All I can say is, it looked uncommonly like the real thing. We all thought so at the time. The symptoms were right enough—or wrong enough, you'll say—and then, look at her since! She's stuck to him through everything—good report, bad report, everything. She's chucked her people—or been chucked. Had four beautiful sisters—glowing, upstanding, fine girls, all of them; and chucked. Old father, in the City: chucked. Mother, big, handsome, hot-tempered: chucked. And all for Nevile, who (between ourselves) ain't worth it. He's not a bad one, but he's not a good one, either. He's got a cruel temper, Nevile has—like that ghastly wife of his. But—” he cried, opening his arms—“there you are. They're like that, her sort. Mighty quiet about it, you know; was turned into the streets, you may say; father, mother, sisters, all showed their backs. What does she do? Sets her teeth together, looks straight ahead, and takes old Nevile. And here she is now oh, as—right as rain. What a girl, eh?”

Mrs. Devereux was certainly moved. She was almost prepared to admit a genuinely exceptional case. But she had a question to ask. Did Ingram intend to marry her—now?

At this Chevenix stepped back, as if to avoid a blow. “Ah!” he said. “Ah! That's it. Ask me another.”

“Do you mean to say of your friend, and mine,” she pursued him, “that he would dare—after all that you tell me—to—-”

“No,” said Chevenix, in a desperate stew; “no, I don't mean that. I think he would have her this moment—if he could get her. But—the fact is—Well, you know—” and he glanced anxiously at the lady, “I've nothing to go upon, absolutely nothing as yet; but the fact is, I'm not sure whether she would take him, you know—now.”

“Is that possible?” was all the lady could find to say, with a throw-up of the hands. “Is that possible?”

“Quite—with Sanchia,” said Chevenix. “Through with him, you know—got to the bottom of him—sick of him. I believe he bores her, you know.” Mrs. Devereux looked at him, more in sorrow than in anger, and then walked slowly away. Most eloquent comment.

---