All the guests departed on Tuesday morning with the exception of Sir James and Lady Grafton. It was a surprising compliment on the part of Sir James that he should have proposed to stay over another day. He explained it by saying that he hadn't quite got the hang of the library yet. The library was well furnished with old books in which nobody had hitherto taken much interest. But Sir James did not, as a matter of fact, spend a great deal of his time there on the extra day that he had proposed to devote to it. He spent most of his time out of doors with one or other of his nieces, and although he carried a calf-bound volume of respectable size in either pocket of his coat he left them reposing there as far as could be seen.

"The dear old thing!" said his young and sprightly wife. "What he really likes is pottering about quietly with the children. They really are dears, George. I wish we saw more of them; but you never will bring them to Frayne. I suppose it's too dull for you."

"Well, it is rather dull," said Grafton, who was on the best of terms with his sister-in-law. "If James and I didn't meet in the City I should want to go and see him there sometimes, but——"

"Well, that's a nice speech!" exclaimed her ladyship. "You don't meet me in the City. But I'll forgive you. After all, it isn't you I want to see at Frayne—it's the children. They're growing up so nicely, George. You owe a lot to Miss Waterhouse. I've never seen two girls of Caroline's and Beatrix's ages who can do as much to make all sorts and ages of people enjoy themselves. James says the same. He didn't want to come here much, to a big party, but now you see you can't get him away. And dear little Barbara will be just the same. James adores Barbara, and it's awfully pretty to see her taking him about with her arm in his, and chattering about everything in earth and heaven. I wish we'd had some girls. The boys are darlings, of course, but they're not peaceful when they're growing up, and my dear old James loves peace."

"We all do," said Grafton. "That's why we love this place. It's quite changed me already. When one of your boys is ready to come into the Bank I shall retire and become a country squire, of the kind that never steps outside his own house."

"Oh, no, you won't, George. James retires before you. I wish the boys were older. It's James's fault for not marrying at the proper age. However, if he'd done that he wouldn't have married me, for I was in the cradle at that time."

"They must have pretty big cradles where you come from," said Grafton.

She gave him a reproving pat on the sleeve; she liked that kind of joke. "This is really a nicer place than Frayne," she said. "I don't wonder you've taken to it. It's hardly fair that the younger brother should have a nicer place than the elder. But I think now you've settled down in a house of your own, George, you ought to think of marrying again. I never thought you wanted it while you were a young man about town, but if you're going to change all your tastes and settle down in the country you will want a wife to look after things for you."

"I've got the children," he said shortly.

"My dear boy, you don't think you're going to keep them long, do you? It's a marvel to me that Caroline hasn't married already. She's been one of the prettiest of all the girls, and B is even prettier, if that's possible. You'll lose 'em both pretty soon, if I'm not very much mistaken."

He turned to her in some alarm. "What do you mean?" he asked. "There's nothing going on, is there?"

She laughed. "How blind men are," she said. "M. de Lassigny is head over ears in love with B."

"Oh, my dear Mary, what nonsense! Excuse my saying so, but it's such a short time since you were in the cradle."

"Very well, George. You may call it nonsense if you like. But you'll see."

"He's been a friend of Caroline's for the last two years. It was she who asked him down here. It would be her if it were anybody, but I know it isn't."

"You may know it isn't Caroline. I know it too. They're just friends. You can't know it isn't B, because it is."

"What makes you say so? He's been just like all the rest of them here. He's been with Caroline just as much as with B. Barbara too, I should say, and the other girls as well."

"That's his artfulness, George. You can't hide these things from a woman—at any rate if she has eyes in her head and knows how to use them. I'm interested in your girls, not having any of my own, so I do use my eyes. He may not be ready to declare himself yet, but he will, sooner or later."

"I should hate that, you know. I don't believe B would take it on for a moment either. Do you?"

"I don't know. If I thought I did I'd tell you so. But why should you hate it? He's just like an Englishman. And he's rich, with an old property and all that sort of thing. He isn't like an adventurer, with a title that comes from nobody knows where. He'd be a very good match. Why should you hate it?"

"I should hate one of the girls to marry a foreigner. I've never thought of such a thing. I don't want either of them to marry yet—certainly not my little B. I want them at home for a bit. I haven't had enough of them yet. We're all going to enjoy ourselves together here for a year or two. They like it as much as I do. Even B, who's enjoying herself in London, likes to come here best,—bless her. She's having her fling. I like 'em to do that; and they're not like other girls, always on the lookout for men. They make friends of them but they like their old father best, after all. It can't always be so, I know, but I'm not going to lose them yet awhile, Mary."

"Well, George, you're very lucky in your girls, I will say that; and you deserve some credit for it, too. You haven't left them to go their own way while you went yours, as lots of men in your position would have done. The consequence is they adore you. And they always will. But you can't expect to be first with them when their time comes. You've had Caroline now for two years since she's grown up, and——"

"Well, what about her? There's nobody head over heels in love with her, is there?"

"I don't know about head over heels. But Francis Parry is in love with her, and you'll have him proposing very shortly, if he hasn't done it already."

"Oh, my dear Mary, you're letting your matchmaking tendencies get the better of you. Now you relieve my mind—about B I mean. If there's no more in it than that!"

"Oh, I know what you think. They've been pals, and all that sort of thing, for years. If there had been more than that it would have come out long ago. Well, you'll see. I say that it's coming out now. It does happen like that, you know, sometimes."

Grafton was inclined to doubt it. He liked Francis Parry, who would be just the right sort of match for Caroline besides, if it should take them in that sort of way, later on. But that sort of way did not include a sudden 'falling in love' at the end of some years' frank and free companionship, during which neither of them had been in the least inclined to pine at such times as they saw little of one another. They were both of them much too sensible. Their liking for one another gave the best sort of promise for happiness in married life, if they should, by and by, decide to settle down together. They had been friends for years and they would go on being friends, all their lives. The same could not be said for all married couples, nor perhaps even for the majority of them, who had begun by being violently in love with one another. That, at any rate, could hardly have happened within the last few days. Mary, who had certainly not fallen violently in love with James, though she was undoubtedly fond of him, and made him a very good wife, was over-sentimental in these matters, and had seen what she had wanted to see.

He had a slight shock of surprise, however, not altogether agreeable, when Caroline, during the course of the morning, told him of what had happened to her.

She linked her arm affectionately in his. "Come for a stroll, darling," she said. "It's rather nice to have got rid of everybody, and be just ourselves again, isn't it?"

She led him to the lily pond. Although everything was finished there now, and neither the yews nor the newly laid turf could have been expected to come together between their frequent visits, they went to look at it several times a day, just to see how it was getting on. So there was no difficulty in drawing him there; and, as other members of the family were satisfied with less frequent inspection, they were not likely to be disturbed.

"Come and sit down," she said, when they had stood for some time by the pool, and discussed the various water-lilies that they had sunk there, tied up between the orthodox turfs. "I want to talk to you."

They sat down on the stone seat. "Talk away!" he said, taking a cigarette out of his case.

Caroline took cigarette and case away from him. "Darling," she said, "you didn't select it. In books they always select a cigarette, usually with care. I'll do it for you."

She gave him a cigarette, took his matchbox out of his pocket, and lit it for him. "I'm really only doing this to save time," she said. "I have a confession to make. The last time I sat on this seat I was proposed to."

"The devil!" exclaimed her father, staring at her.

"No, darling, not the devil. I'm not so bad as that. Don't be offensive to your little daughter—or profane."

"Who was it? Francis Parry?"

"Yes, darling. You've got it in one. It was last night. The moon was shining and the yews looked almost like a real hedge. Rather a score for our garden, I think."

He took a draw at his cigarette and inhaled it. "Well, if that's the way you take it, I suppose you didn't accept him," he said.

Having taken the fence of introducing the subject, she became more serious. "No, I didn't accept him," she said. "But I didn't refuse him either. I wanted to talk to you about it first."

That pleased him. At this time of day one no longer expected to have the disposal of one's daughter's hand, or to be asked for permission to pay addresses to her, if the man who paid them was justified in doing so by his social and financial position, and probably even less so if he wasn't. But it was gratifying that his daughter should put his claims on her so high that she would not give her answer until she had consulted him about it first.

"Well, darling," he said, "I don't want you to marry anybody just yet. But Francis Parry is a very nice fellow. I'd just as soon you married him as anybody if you want to. Do you?"

"Perhaps I might," she said doubtfully. "I do like him. I think we should get on all right together." There was a slight pause. "He likes Dickens," she added.

Grafton did not smile. "Mary has just told me that you've suddenly fallen in love with one another," he said. It was not exactly what Mary had told him, but he was feeling a trifle sore with her for seeing something that he hadn't, and for another reason which he hadn't examined yet.

"Aunt Mary is too clever by half," said Caroline. "She couldn't have seen anything in me that hasn't always been there. But Francis did say he loved me. I suppose he had to, didn't he, Dad? No, I don't mean that. I mean he'd expect one to begin with that, wouldn't he?"

He was touched; he couldn't have told why, unless it was from some waft of memory from his own wooing, which had certainly begun with that. He put his arm round her and kissed her. "Do you love him?" he asked her.

She returned his kiss warmly. "Not half as much as I love you, darling old Daddy," she said. "I don't want to go away from you for a long time yet. Supposing I tell Francis that I like him very much, but I don't want to marry anybody yet. How would that do?"

"It seems to fit the bill," he said in a lighter tone. "No, don't get married yet, Cara. We're going to have a lot of fun here. It would break things up almost before they've begun. I say, is there anything between Lassigny and B?"

She laughed. "Has Aunt Mary seen that too?" she asked.

"She says she has. Why! have you seen it? Surely not!"

"To tell you the truth, I haven't looked very carefully. They like each other, I suppose, just as he and I like each other. He hasn't been any different to me; I think he's been as much with me as he has with her."

"Yes, but B herself, I mean. She wouldn't want to fall in love with a foreigner, would she?"

"How British you are, darling! I never think about M. de Lassigny as a foreigner."

"I do though. I should hate one of you girls to marry anybody not English. B doesn't like him in that way, does she?"

"I don't think so, dear. I don't think she likes anybody in that way yet. She's just like I was, when I first came out, enjoying herself frightfully and making lots of friends. He was one of the people I liked first of all. He's interesting to talk to. She likes lots of other men too. In fact she has talked to me about lots of them, but I don't think she's ever mentioned him—before he came here, I mean."

Whether that fact seemed quite convincing to Caroline or no, it relieved her father. "Oh, I don't suppose there's anything in it," he said. "His manners with women are a bit more elaborate than an Englishman's. I suppose that's what Mary has got hold of. I must say, I didn't notice him paying any more attention to B than to you; or Barbara either, for that matter. Of course B is an extraordinarily pretty girl. She's bound to get a lot of notice. I hope she won't take up with anybody yet awhile though. I don't want to lose her. I don't want to lose any of you. Anyway, I should hate losing her to a Frenchman."

His fears were further reduced by Beatrix's treatment of him during that day, and when they went up to London together the next morning. She was very clinging and affectionate, and very amusing too. Surely no girl who was not completely heart-whole would have been so light-hearted and merry over all the little experiences of life that her entry into the world was bringing her! And she hardly mentioned Lassigny's name at all, though there was scarcely one of the numerous acquaintances she had made whom she had not something to say about, and generally to make fun of. Her fun was never ill-natured, but everybody and everything presented itself to her in the light of her gay humour, and was presented to her audience in that light. She was far the wittiest of the three of them, and her bright audacities enchanted her father when she was in the mood for them, when her eyes danced and sparkled with mischief and her laugh rang out like music. He had never been able to think of Beatrix as quite grown up; she was more of a child to him even than Barbara, whom nobody could have thought of as grown up, or anywhere near it. It dismayed him to think of losing her, even if it should be to a man of whom he should fully approve. But, filling his eyes as she did with a sense of the sweet perfection of girlhood, he was wondering if it were possible that she of all the girls who would be married or affianced before the season was over would escape, even if there was nothing to be feared as to the particular attachment that had been put into his mind.

But though it might be impossible to think that she would tread her first gay measure without having hearts laid at her feet, it was quite possible to think of her as dancing through it without picking any of them up. In fact, she as good as told him that that was her attitude towards all the admiration she was receiving when she went up to fish with him in the evening, and was as charmingly companionable and confidential to him as even he could wish her to be.

She had a way with him that was sweeter to him even than Caroline's way. Caroline treated him as her chosen companion among all men, as he always had been so far, but she treated him as an equal, almost as a brother, though with a devotion not often shown by sisters to brothers. But Beatrix transformed herself into his little dog or slave. She behaved, without a trace of affectation, as if she were about six years old. She ran to fetch and carry for him, she tried to do things that he did, just as Bunting did, and laughed at herself for trying. Caroline often put her face up to his to be kissed, but Beatrix would take his hand, half-furtively, and kiss it softly or lay it to her cheek, or snuggle up to him with a little sigh of content, as if it were enough for her to be with him and adore him. This evening, by the pool at the edge of the park, where the grass was full of flowers and the grey aspens and heavy elms threw their shadows across the water and were reflected in its liquid depths, she was his gillie, and got so excited on the few occasions on which she had an opportunity of using the landing-net, that she got her skirt and shoes and stockings all covered with mud, just as if she were a child with no thought of clothes, instead of a young woman at the stage when they are of paramount importance.

He was so happy with this manifestation of her, which of all her moods he loved the best, that the discomfort he had felt about her was assuaged. He did not even want to ask her questions. A confiding active child, behaving with the sexlessness of a small boy, she was so far removed from all the absorptions of love-making that it would have seemed almost unnatural to bring them to her mind.

They strolled home very slowly, she carrying for him all he would allow her to carry and clinging to him closely, even making him put his arm round her shoulder, as she had done when she was little, so that she might put her arm around his waist.

"It's lovely being with you, my old Daddywad," she said. Then she sang a little song which a nurse had taught her, and with the mistakes she had made in her babyhood, and with the nurse's intonation:

"I love Daddy,
My dear Daddy,
And I know vat 'e loves me;
'E's my blaymate,
Raim or shine,
Vere's not annover Daddy in er worl' like mine."

She laughed softly, and gave his substantial waist a squeeze. "You do like having me here, don't you, Daddy darling? You do miss me while I'm away?"

"Of course I do," he said. "I should like you to be here always. But you enjoy yourself in London, don't you?"

"Not half as much as I'm enjoying myself now," she said. It was just what Caroline had said. There was nobody either of them liked to be with so much as him. "When it's all over in July we'll stay here for a bit, won't we, Dad? Don't let's go abroad this year. I like this much better."

"I don't want to go abroad," he said. "I expect somebody will want to take you to Cowes though."

"I don't want to miss Cowes. I mean after that. We'll be quiet here and ask very few people, till it's time to go up to Scotland."

"Oh, you're going to Scotland, are you?"

"Yes, with the Ardrishaigs. I told you, darling. You don't love your little daughter enough to remember what she's going to do with herself. But you do like me to enjoy myself, don't you?"

"Of course I do. And you are enjoying yourself like anything, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes. I'm having spiffing fun. I never thought I should like it half so much. It makes everything so jolly. I've enjoyed being at home more because of it, and I shall enjoy it more still when I go back because I've loved being in the quiet country and having fun with you, my old Daddy."

"You're not getting your head turned, with all the young fellows dancing attendance on you?"

She laughed clearly. "That's the best fun of the lot," she said. "They are so silly, a lot of them. I'm sure you weren't like that. Did you fall in love a lot when you first had your hair up?"

"Once or twice. It's the way of young fellows."

"I don't think it's the way of young girls, if they're nice. I'm not going to fall in love yet, if I ever do. I think it spoils things. I'm not sure that I don't rather like their falling in love with me though. I should consider it rather a slight if some of them didn't. Besides, they give me a lot of quiet fun."

"Well, as long as you don't fall in love yourself, just yet—— I don't want to lose you yet awhile."

"And I don't want to lose you, my precious old Daddy. I can't be always with you. I must have my fling, you know. But I love to feel you're just round the corner somewhere. I never forget you, darling, even when I'm enjoying myself most."

So that was all right. He was first, and the rest nowhere, with all his girls. He knew more about them than Mary possibly could. He would have to give them up to some confounded fellow some day, but even that wouldn't be so bad if they took it as Caroline had taken Francis Parry's proposal, and they married nice fellows such as he was, who wouldn't really divide them from their father. As for Lassigny, there was evidently no danger of anything of that sort happening. It would have hurt his little B to suggest such a thing, by way of sounding her, and he was glad he hadn't done it.