“Tibby, angel, what’s the matter with Pia?”

Trix Devereux was sitting on the little rustic table beneath the lime trees, smoking a cigarette. Miss Tibbutt was sitting on the rustic seat, knitting some fine lace. The ball of knitting cotton was in a black satin bag on her lap.

Trix had arrived at Woodleigh the previous day, two days earlier than she had been expected. A telegram had preceded her appearance. It was a lengthy telegram, an explicit telegram. It set forth various facts in a manner entirely characteristic of Trix. Firstly, it announced her almost immediate arrival; secondly, it remarked on the extraordinary heat in London; and thirdly it stated quite clearly her own overwhelming and instant desire for the nice, fresh, cool, clean, country.

“Trix is coming to-day,” the Duchessa had said as she read it.

“How delightful!” Miss Tibbutt had replied instantly. And then, after a moment’s pause, “There will be plenty of food because Father Dormer is dining here to-night.”

The Duchessa had laughed. It was so entirely like Tibby to think of food the first thing.

“I know,” she had replied. And then reflectively, “I think it might be desirable to telephone to Doctor Hilary and ask him to come too. It really is not fair to ask Father Dormer to meet three solitary females.”

A second time Miss Tibbutt had momentarily and mentally surveyed the contents of the larder, and almost immediately had nodded her entire approval of the idea. She most thoroughly enjoyed the mild excitement of a little dinner party.

“Tibby, angel, what’s the matter with Pia?”

The question fell rather like a bomb, though quite a small bomb, into the sunshine.

“Matter with Pia,” echoed Miss Tibbutt. “What do you think, my dear?”

“That,” said Trix wisely, “is precisely what I am asking you?”

Miss Tibbutt laid down her knitting.

“But do you think anything is the matter?” she questioned anxiously.

“I don’t think, I know,” remarked Trix succinctly.

Miss Tibbutt took off her spectacles.

“But she is so bright,” she said.

Trix nodded emphatically.

“That’s just it. She’s too bright. Oh, one can overdo the merry light-hearted rÔle, I assure you. And then, to a new-comer at all events, the cloak becomes apparent. But haven’t you the smallest idea?”

Miss Tibbutt shook her head.

“Not the least,” she announced. “I fancied one evening shortly after she returned here, that something was a little wrong. I remember I asked her. She talked about soap-bubbles and cobwebs but said there weren’t any left.”

“Of which,” smiled Trix. “Soap-bubbles or cobwebs?”

“Oh, cobwebs,” said Miss Tibbutt earnestly. “Or was it both? She said,—yes, I remember now just what she did say—she said that a pretty bubble had burst and become a cobweb. And when I asked her if the cobweb were bothering her, she said both it and the bubble had vanished. So, you see!” This last on a note of triumph.

“Hmm,” said Trix ruminative, dubious. “Bubbles have a way of taking up more space than one would imagine, and their bursting sometimes leaves an unpleasant gap. The bursting of this one has left a gap in Pia’s life. You haven’t, by any chance, the remotest notion of its colour?”

“Its colour?” queried Miss Tibbutt.

Trix laughed. “Nonsense, Tibby, angel, nonsense pure and simple. But all the same, I wish I knew for dead certain.”

“So do I,” said Miss Tibbutt anxiously, though she hadn’t the smallest notion what advantage a knowledge of the colour would be to either one of them.

Trix dabbed the stump of her cigarette on the table.

“Well, don’t let her know we think there’s anything wrong. If you want to remain wrapped up in the light-hearted cloak, nothing is more annoying than having any one prying to see what’s underneath,—unless it’s the right person, of course. And we’re not sure that we are—yet. We must just wait till she feels like giving us a peep, if she ever does.”

A silence fell. Miss Tibbutt took up her knitting again. Trix hummed a little air from a popular opera. Presently Miss Tibbutt sighed. Trix left off humming.

“What’s the matter, Tibby?”

Miss Tibbutt sighed more deeply. “I’m afraid it’s my fault,” she said.

“What’s your fault?” demanded Trix.

“I’ve not noticed Pia. I thought everything was all right after what she said. I ought to have noticed. I’ve been too wrapped up in my own affairs. Perhaps if I’d been more sympathetic I should have found out what was the matter.”

Trix laughed, a happy amused, comfortable little laugh.

“Oh, Tibby, you angel, that’s so like you. You always want to shoulder the blame for every speck of wrong-doing or depression that appears in your little universe. Women like you always do. It’s an odd sort of responsible unselfishness. That doesn’t in the very least express to any one else what I mean, but it does to myself. You never allow that any one else has any responsibility when things go wrong, and you never take the smallest share of the responsibility—or the praise, rather—when things go right.”

Miss Tibbutt laughed. In spite of her queer earnestness over what seemed—at all events to others—very little things, and her quite extraordinary conscientiousness—some people indeed might have called it scrupulosity—she had really a keen sense of humour. She was always ready to laugh at her own earnestness as soon as she perceived it. She was not, however, always ready to abandon it, unless it were quite, quite obvious that she had really better do so. And then she did it with a quick mental shake, and put an odd little mocking humour in its place.

“But, my dear, one generally is responsible, and that just because my universe is so small, as you justly pointed out. But I always believe literally what any one says. I don’t in the least mean that Pia said what was not true. Of course she thought she had swept away the cobweb and the bubble, and I’ve no doubt she did. But it left a gap, as you said. I ought to have seen the gap and tried to fill it.”

Trix shook her head.

“You couldn’t, Tibby, if the bubble were the colour I fancy. Only the bubble itself, consolidated, could do that.”

“Oh, my dear, you mean—?” said Miss Tibbutt.

“Just that,” nodded Trix. “It was bound to happen some time. Pia is made to give and receive love. She was too young when she married to know what it really meant. And, well, think of those years of her married life.”

“I thought of them for seven years,” said Miss Tibbutt quietly. “You don’t think I’ve forgotten them now?”

Trix’s eyes filled with quick tears.

“Of course you haven’t. I didn’t mean that. What I do mean is that I suppose she thought she had got the real thing then, and all the young happiness in it was destroyed in a moment. Then came those seven terrible years. For an older woman perhaps there would have been a self-sacrificing joy in them; for Pia, there was just the brave facing of an obvious duty. She was splendid, of course she was splendid, but no one could call it joy. Now, somehow, she’s had a glimpse of what real joy might be. And it has vanished again. I don’t know how I know, but it’s true. I feel it in my bones.”

Again there was a silence. Then:

“What can we do?” asked Miss Tibbutt simply.

Trix laughed, though her eyes were grave. “You, angel, can pray. Of course I shall, too. But I’m going to do quite a lot of thinking, and keeping my eyes open as well. And now I am going right round this perfectly heavenly garden once more, and then, I suppose, it will be time to dress for dinner.”

Swinging herself off the table, she departed waving her hand to Miss Tibbutt before she turned a corner by a yew hedge.

“Dear Trix,” murmured Miss Tibbutt.