If you happen to have anything on your mind, it is impossible—or practically impossible—to avoid thinking about it. Which, doubtless, is so obvious a fact, it is barely worth stating.

The Duchessa di Donatello had something on her mind; it possessed her waking thoughts, it coloured her dreams. And what that something was, is also, perhaps, entirely obvious. Again and again she told herself that she would not dwell on the subject; but she might as well have tried to dam a river with a piece of tissue paper, as prevent the thought from filling her mind; and that probably because—with true feminine inconsistency—she welcomed it quite as much as she tried to dispel it.

Occasionally she allowed it free entry, regarded it, summed it up as unsatisfactory, and sternly dismissed it. In three minutes it was welling up again, perhaps in the same old route, perhaps choosing a different course.

“Why can’t I put the man and everything concerning him out of my mind for good and all?” she asked herself more than once. And, whatever the reply to her query, the fact remained that she couldn’t; the thought had become something of an obsession.

Now, when a thought has become an obsession, there is practically only one way to free oneself from it, and that is by speech. Speech has a way of clearing the clogged channels of the mind, and allowing the thought to flow outwards, and possibly to disappear altogether; whereas, without this clearance, the thought of necessity returns to its source, gathering in volume with each recoil.

But speech is frequently not at all easy, and that not only because there is often a difficulty in finding the right confidant, but because, with the channels thus clogged, it is a distinct effort to clear them. Also, though subconsciously you may realize its desirability, it is often merely subconsciously, and reason and common sense,—or, rather, what you at the moment quite erroneously believe to be reason and common sense—will urge a hundred motives upon you in favour of silence. Maybe that most subtle person the devil is the suggester of these motives. If he can’t get much of a look in by direct means, he’ll try indirect ones, and depression is one of his favourite indirect methods. At all events so the old spiritual writers tell us, and doubtless they knew what they were talking about.

Now, Trix was perfectly well aware that Pia had something on her mind; she was also perfectly well aware that it was something she would have an enormous difficulty in talking about. And the question was, how to give her even the tiniest lead.

Trix had stated that she had guessed the colour of the soap-bubble; but she hadn’t the faintest notion where it had come into existence, nor where and how it had burst. Nor had Pia given her directly the smallest hint of its having ever existed. All of which facts made it exceedingly difficult for her even to hint at soap-bubbles—figuratively speaking of course—as a subject of conversation.

And Pia was slightly irritable too. Of course it was entirely because she was unhappy, but it didn’t conduce to intimate conversation. Prickles would suddenly appear among the most innocent looking of flowers, in a way that was entirely disconcerting and utterly unpleasant. And the worst of it was, that there was no avoiding them. They darted out and pricked you before you were even aware of their presence. It was so utterly unlike Pia too, and so—Trix winked back a tear as she thought of it—so hurting.

At last she came to a decision. The prickles simply must be handled and extracted if possible. Of course she might get quite unpleasantly stabbed in the process, but at all events she’d be prepared for the risk, and anything would be better than the little darts appearing at quite unexpected moments and places.

“The next time I’m pricked,” said Trix to herself firmly, “I’ll seize hold of the prickle, and then perhaps we’ll see where we are.”

And, as a result perhaps of this resolution, the prickles suddenly disappeared. Trix was immeasurably relieved in one sense, but not entirely easy. She fancied the prickles to be hidden rather than extracted. However, they’d ceased to wound for the time being, and that certainly was an enormous comfort. Miss Tibbutt, with greater optimism than Trix, believed all to be entirely well once more, and rejoiced accordingly.

“Doctor Hilary has been over here rather often lately,” remarked Miss Tibbutt one afternoon. Pia and she were sitting in the garden together.

“Old Mrs. Mosely is ill,” returned Pia smiling oracularly.

“But only a very little ill,” said Miss Tibbutt reflectively. “Her daughter told me only yesterday—I’m afraid it wasn’t very grateful of her—that the Doctor had been ’moidering around like ’sif mother was on her dying bed, and her wi’ naught but a bit o’ cold to her chest, what’s gone to her head now, and a glass or two o’ hot cider, and ginger, and allspice, and rosemary will be puttin’ right sooner nor you can flick a fly off a sugar basin.’”

Pia laughed.

“My dear Tibby, he doesn’t come to see Mrs. Mosely.”

Miss Tibbutt looked up in perplexed query.

“He comes on here to tea, doesn’t he?” asked Pia, kindly, after the manner of one giving a lead.

“Certainly,” returned Miss Tibbutt, still perplexed. “He would naturally do so, since he is in Woodleigh just at tea time.”

Pia leant back in her seat, and looked at Miss Tibbutt.

“Tibby dear, you’re amazingly slow at the uptake.”

Miss Tibbutt blinked at Pia over her spectacles.

“Please explain,” said she meekly.

Pia laughed.

“Haven’t you discovered, Tibby dear, that it’s Trix he comes to see?”

“Trix!” ejaculated Miss Tibbutt.

“Yes; and she is quite as unaware of the fact as you are, so don’t, for all the world, enlighten her. Leave that to him, if he means to.”

Miss Tibbutt had let her work fall, and was gazing round-eyed at Pia.

“But, my dear Pia, he’s years older than Trix.”

“Oh, not so very many,” said Pia reassuringly. “Fifteen or sixteen, perhaps. Trix is twenty-four, you know.”

“And Trix is leaving here the day after to-morrow,” said Miss Tibbutt regretfully.

“London isn’t the antipodes,” declared Pia. “She can come here again, or business may take Doctor Hilary to London. There are trains.”

“Well, well,” said Miss Tibbutt.

Trix appeared at the open drawing-room window and came out on to the terrace. She paused for a moment to pick a dead rose off a bush growing near the house. Then she saw the two under the lime tree. She came towards them.

“Doctor Hilary has just driven up through the plantation gate,” she said. “I suppose he’s coming to tea. His man was evidently going to put up the horse.”

The Duchessa glanced at a gold bracelet watch on her wrist.

“It’s four o’clock,” she said.

“He takes tea quite for granted,” smiled Trix.

“I suppose,” responded the Duchessa, “that he considers five almost consecutive invitations equivalent to one standing one.”

“Well, anyhow I should,” nodded Trix. “What are you looking so wise about, Tibby angel?”

Miss Tibbutt started. “Was I looking wise? I didn’t know.”

Trix perched herself on the table.

“Dale will clear me off in a minute,” she announced. “I suppose you’ll have tea out here as usual. Till then it’s the nicest seat. Oh dear, I wish I wasn’t going home to-morrow. That’s not a hint to you to ask me to stay longer. I shouldn’t hint, I’d speak straight out. But I must join Aunt Lilla at her hydro place. She’s getting lonely. She wants an audience to which to relate her partner’s idiocy at Bridge, and someone to help carry her photographic apparatus. Also someone to whom she can keep up a perpetual flow of conversation. That’s not the least uncharitable, as you’d know if you knew Aunt Lilla. I think she must have been born talking. But I love her all the same.”

Trix tilted back her head and looked up at the sky through the branches of the trees.

“I wonder why space is blue,” she said, “and why it’s so much bluer some days than others, even when there aren’t any clouds.”

A step on the terrace behind her put an end to her wondering. Doctor Hilary came round the corner of the house.

“I’ve taken your invitation for granted, Duchessa, as I happened to be out this way,” said he as he shook hands.

“Is old Mrs. Mosely still so ill?” asked Trix, sympathy in her voice.

Miss Tibbutt kept her eyes almost guiltily on her knitting. Pia, glancing at her, laughed inwardly.

“She’s better to-day,” responded Doctor Hilary cheerfully. And then he sat down. Trix had descended from the table, and seated herself in a basket chair.

Dale brought out the tea in a few minutes, and put it on the table Trix had vacated. The conversation was trivial and desultory, even more trivial and desultory than most tea-time conversation. Miss Tibbutt was too occupied with Pia’s recent revelation to have much thought for speech, Doctor Hilary was never a man of many words, the Duchessa had been marvellously lacking in conversation of late, and Trix’s occasional remarks were mainly outspoken reflections on the sunshine and the flowers, which required no particular response. Nevertheless she was conscious of a certain flatness in her companions, and wondered vaguely what had caused it.

“I’m going to Llandrindod Wells to-morrow,” said she presently.

Doctor Hilary looked up quickly.

“Then your visit here has come to an end?” he queried.

Trix nodded.

“Alas, yes,” she sighed, regret, half genuine, half mocking, in her voice. “But most certainly I shall come down again if the Duchessa will let me come. I had forgotten, absolutely forgotten, what a perfectly heavenly place this was. And that doesn’t in the least mean that I am coming solely for the place, and not to see her, though I am aware it did not sound entirely tactful.”

“And when do you suppose you will be coming again?” asked Doctor Hilary with a fine assumption of carelessness, not in the least lost upon the Duchessa.

“Before Christmas I hope,” replied she in Trix’s stead. “Or, indeed, at any time or moment she chooses.”

Doctor Hilary looked thoughtful, grave. A little frown wrinkled between his eyebrows. He pulled silently at his pipe. The Duchessa was watching him.

“Alas, poor man!” thought she whimsically. “He was about to seize opportunity, and behold, fate snatches opportunity from him. Oh, cruel fate!”

And then she beheld his brow clearing. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and began feeling in his pocket for his pouch to refill it.

“He’s relieved,” declared the Duchessa inwardly, and somewhat astounded. “He’s so amazingly diffident, and yet so utterly in love, he’s relieved.”

Of course she was right, she knew perfectly well she was right. Well, perhaps courage would grow with Trix’s absence. For his own sake it was to be devoutly trusted that it would.

Doctor Hilary took his tobacco pouch from his pocket, and with it a small piece of paper. He looked at the paper.

“The name of a new rose,” he said. “Michael Field, the new under-gardener at the Hall, gave it to me. He tells me it is a very free flowerer, and has a lovely scent. Do you care to have the name, Duchessa?” He held the slip of paper towards her.

The Duchessa looked carelessly at it. Trix was looking at the Duchessa.

“No, thank you,” she replied. “We have plenty of roses here, and Thornby can no doubt give me the name of any new kinds I shall want.”

Now it was not merely an entirely unnecessary refusal, but the tone of the speech was nearly, if not quite, deliberately rude. It was a terribly big prickle, and showed itself perfectly distinctly. There wasn’t even the smallest semblance of disguise about it.

Doctor Hilary put the paper and his tobacco pouch back into his pocket.

“I must be off,” he said in an oddly quiet voice. “I’ve one or two other calls to make.”

Miss Tibbutt walked towards the house with him,—to fetch some more knitting, so she announced. Trix suspected a little mental stroking.

“What’s the matter, Pia?” asked Trix calmly, leaning back in her chair.

“The matter?” said Pia, the faintest suspicion of a flush in her cheeks.

“You were very—very snubbing to Doctor Hilary,” announced Trix, still calmly. Inwardly she was not so calm. In fact, her heart was thumping quite loudly.

“My dear Trix,” replied the Duchessa coldly, “I have an excellent gardener. I do not care for recommendations emanating from a complete stranger.”

“There was no smallest need to snub Doctor Hilary, though,” said Trix quietly. The queer surprise on his face had caused a little stab at her heart.

The Duchessa made no reply.

“Pia, what is the matter?” asked Trix again.

“I have told you, nothing,” responded the Duchessa.

Trix shook her head. “Yes; there is. You’re unhappy. You’ve been—you can tell me to mind my own business, if you like—you’ve been horribly prickly lately. You’ve tried to hurt my feelings, and Tibby’s, and now you’ve tried to hurt Doctor Hilary’s. And he didn’t deserve it in the least, but he thought, for a moment, he did. And it isn’t like you, Pia. It isn’t one bit. Do tell me what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Pia again.

“Darling, that’s a—a white lie at all events.”

Pia coloured. “Anyhow it’s not worth talking about,” she said.

“Are you sure it isn’t?” urged Trix. “Couldn’t I help the weeniest bit?”

The Duchessa shook her head.

“Darling,” said Trix again, and she slipped her arm through Pia’s.

“I’m all one big bruise,” said Pia suddenly.

Trix stroked her hand.

“It is entirely foolish of me to care,” said the Duchessa slowly. “But I happen to have trusted someone rather implicitly. I never dreamed it possible the person could stoop to act a lie. I would not have minded the thing itself,—it would have been absurd for me to have done so. But it hurt rather considerably that the person should have deceived me in the matter, in fact have acted a deliberate lie about it. I am honestly doing my best to forget the whole thing, but I am being constantly reminded of it.”

Trix sat up very straight. So that was it, she told herself. How idiotic of her not to have guessed at once,—days ago, that is,—when she herself had made her marvellous discovery. It was now quite plain to her mind that Pia must have made it too. It was Doctor Hilary whom she believed to be the fraud, the friend whom she had trusted, and who had acted a lie. The whole oddness of Pia’s behaviour became suddenly perfectly clear to her. Tibby had told her that it had begun on her return to Woodleigh. Well, that must have been when she first found out. How she’d found out, Trix didn’t know. But that was beside the mark. She evidently had found out.

Trix’s mind ran back over various little incidents. She remembered the snub administered to Father Dormer the evening after her arrival. The new under-gardener had been the subject of conversation then, of course reminding Pia of the Hall. And she had snubbed Father Dormer, as she had snubbed Doctor Hilary a few minutes ago. All Pia’s snubs and sudden prickles came back to her mind. They all had their origin in some inadvertent remark regarding the Hall.

Yes; everything was as clear as daylight now. Pia had learnt of this business in some roundabout way that did not allow of her speaking openly to Doctor Hilary on the subject, so she saw merely the fraud, and had no idea that it was, in all probability, an entirely justifiable one, and that at all events no one had told any deliberate lie. Of course Pia was disturbed and upset. Wouldn’t she have been herself, in Pia’s place? And hadn’t she felt quite unreasonably unhappy till Mr. Danver had assured her that Doctor Hilary had not spoken a single word of actual untruth?

Oh, poor Pia!

Now, it was not in the least astonishing that Trix’s mind should have leapt to this entirely erroneous conclusion. For the last fortnight it had been full of her discovery. The smallest thing that seemed to bear on it, instantly appeared actually to do so. And everything in her present train of thought fitted in with astonishing accuracy. Each little incident in Pia’s late behaviour fell into place with it.

She did not stop to consider that, if this were the sole cause of Pia’s trouble, she—Pia—was unquestionably taking a very exaggerated view of it. It never occurred to Trix to do so. If she had considered the matter at all, it would have been merely to realize that Pia’s attitude towards it was remarkably like what her own would have been. She would have known, had she attempted analysis of the subject, that she herself was frequently troubled about trifles, or what at any rate would have appeared to others as trifles, where any friend of hers was concerned. Her friends’ actions and her own, in what are ordinarily termed little things, mattered quite supremely to her, most particularly in any question regarding honour. The smallest infringement of it would be enough to cause her sleepless nights and anxious days. Therefore, without attempting any analysis, she could perfectly well understand what she believed Pia’s point of view to be. And her present distress was, that, in view of her promise, she could do nothing definite to help her.

She could not show her Doctor Hilary’s standpoint in the matter, since it was not permissible for her to give the smallest hint that she was acquainted either with it, or with the whole business at all. She could not even hint that she believed Doctor Hilary to be the person concerning whom Pia was troubled. She could only take refuge in generalities, which, with a definite case before her, she felt to be a peculiarly unsatisfactory proceeding. Yet there was nothing else to be done. It was more than probable that Pia was in the same kind of cleft stick as herself, and that therefore direct discussion of the matter was out of the question.

Still stroking Pia’s hand, Trix spoke slowly.

“Pia, darling, what I am going to say will sound very poor comfort, I know. But it’s this. Isn’t it just possible that you could give the—the person concerned the benefit of a doubt? Even if it seems to you that he has acted a lie, and therefore been something of a fraud, mayn’t there be some extraordinarily good reason, behind it all, that circumstances are preventing him from explaining? Such queer things do happen, and sometimes people have to appear to others as frauds, when they really aren’t a bit. If you were ever really friends with the person—and you must have been, or you wouldn’t care—I’d just say to myself that I would trust him in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Perhaps some day you’ll be most awfully sorry if you don’t. And isn’t it a million times better to be even mistaken in trust where a friend is concerned, than give way to the smallest doubt which may afterwards be proved to be a wrong doubt?”

Pia was silent. Then she said in an oddly even voice,

“Trix do you know anything?”

Trix flushed to the roots of her hair. Pia turned to look at her.

“Trix!” she said amazed.

“Pia,” implored Trix, “you mustn’t ask me a single question, because I can’t answer you. But do, do, trust.”

Pia drew a long breath.

“Trix, you’re the uncanniest little mortal that ever lived, and I can’t imagine how you could have guessed, or what exactly it is you really do know. But I believe I am going to take your advice.”