"She is as straight as a yard o' pump water, an' won't never brush forty again," said Martha up to her elbows in flour, austerely, "but I wouldn't trust her for that neither. No! Not with Bate comin' into his dinner wantin' comfort. He have a trick o' blushin', Miss H'Aura, as sympathy might make a marryin' on--an' I won't have it in the 'ouse."

"But I thought," said Aura gravely, for she was accustomed by now to Martha's view of the new parlour-maid, "that Bate gave Parkinson no encouragement."

"Encouragement," echoed Martha bitterly, "no more he do. Why! he don't even wink at her. Give her the cold shoulder constant; but there! she's o' that sort, Miss H'Aura, as don't mind whether a jint's 'ot or cold so long as it's man's meat. Besides, master 'ud need a woman folk to stand atwixt him and the fun'ral if there was a smash in the motor, for Bate ain't no manner of use when there's tears about--'es got such a feelin' 'eart. So, thanking 'is lordship all the same for the kind thought, I'd better stop at 'ome."

There was never any questioning Martha's decision; so Aura went back to the drawing-room doubtfully. It was a glorious day and Ned Blackborough had come over half-an-hour before, bearing both to herself and her grandfather notes of invitation from Mrs. Tressilian to come over to lunch and see the show place. The notes had evidently been all in order, for though her grandfather had declined brusquely for himself, he had looked at her as if he had just realised she was no longer a child, and asked her wistfully if she would like to go. And she without a thought had told the truth--namely that she would love it. Then had come doubts. The last three days, filled up as they had been by the absolute adulation of the two young men had brought her a curious, innate, but till then dormant, sense that there were things which girls ought not to do. And having, much against her will, admitted this to herself, she became sternly scrupulous.

Ought she, or ought she not to go alone with Lord Blackborough in the motor? She knitted her brows over the problem, telling herself the while that she hated the world and every one in it. Then Lord Blackborough--he had an uncomfortable habit of reading her thoughts which she bitterly resented--had suggested Martha. And now Martha would not come. It was all such silly nonsense!

Ned Blackborough, watching her troubled face, felt that he could then and there have put his arms round her, kissed her even against her will and carried her right away from everything and everybody; from all conventionalities and princes and powers. She was a perpetual temptation to him to cast aside what few moorings he had. He was a man and she the one and only woman in the whole wide world; and he wanted her.

It was a headlong, purely emotional desire from which--curiously enough it struck him--passion was almost entirely absent. In a way, despite his greater reserve, there was more of passion in Ted's rational, straightforward, more normal love.

The very emotionality of Ned's feeling, however, carried with it content and certainty; for he felt that nothing in heaven or earth could dim the halo of flame and fire in which he stood beside her.

So he could afford to be magnanimous. "Then you had better take the fourth seat, Ted!" he said carelessly, looking to where the latter, his hands in his pockets, was glooming out of the window at the motor which could just be seen waiting through the bare branches across the drawbridge.

He had already had a casual invitation for himself and his cycle thrown at him, he felt, like a bone to a dog. But he had refused it. Pleasant work, indeed, riding in the dusty wake of a rival who was abducting the girl you loved at the rate of five-and-twenty miles an hour in a Panhard.

From every point of view he had decided it would be wiser to stop at home, possess his soul in patience, and keep Aura's grandfather in a good humour. For the more he saw of Aura the more he realised that her choice was likely to follow the lead of her environment. He was very clear-sighted, very much in earnest. The unconventionality of the position irked him, and he heartily wished that he could quarrel with Ned, or even huff him--as people always did on these occasions. But that was out of the question; he was bound to be friendly and fight for the girl fairly. Yet, being what he was, a man with a natural gift for business, he could not help drawing up his prospectus, as it were, and counting up all his available assets. His love had nothing of Ned's impetuosity about it, so with all his real passion for Aura he soon realised that it was wise not to show it too much.

It frightened her. The brotherly tack ensured quicker confidence. And, of course, Sylvanus Smith's liking for him was a great point in his favour. Regarding this, he did not feel in any way mean, for he himself liked the old fellow, and found his somewhat antiquated talk interesting.

But this later offer of Ned's was another thing; he looked round and accepted it heartily, feeling, however, as he often did when he looked at Ned's face, a trifle of a sneak; for he was fighting impulse with strategy, and he felt convinced that he was right in doing so.

He was, nevertheless, in danger of forgetting his rÔle when Aura made her appearance dressed for her drive. She had a little conscious flush in her face, the result of having for the first time in her life tried on and rejected various articles of attire. So far as the dress and coat went, she had no choice. Her method of life made washing dresses a necessity; and for winter white was the only colour which would survive Martha's vigorous washing. So her serge, toned to a decided cream by those same efforts after cleanliness, was unalterable, and the furs she had found in the boxes of outworn apparel, which her grandfather had handed over to her on her sixteenth birthday, were also a permanent asset. She had no notion of their worth--she supposed they were sable; she knew that when the darker longer hairs blew aside the inner fluff was exactly the bronze hue of her hair. It was her head-covering which troubled her. She tried a scarlet Tam-o'-Shanter but flung it aside. The contrast was too great. A white one followed suit. There was something wrong; she knew not what. Finally a bronze, brown-specked one made a faint curve come to her lips. It matched the fur, and somehow, her face. Then she lingered with a half-shamed look by the chest-of-drawers. Should she? Should she not? She might at any rate take something in case; so she stuffed a long, fine lace scarf into her muff and ran hastily downstairs.

Her advent brought a sort of breathlessness to the two young men. Ned evaded it by saying prosaically, "You'll have to tie on your head with something, I expect."

"I have got something," replied Aura superbly, and out came the lace scarf. It was bewildering. All the more so when Mr. Sylvanus Smith, looking at her with that same wistful affection, said half to himself, "Your grandmother wore that, my dear, when she was married."

But there was no time for sentimentalities. Here was a young girl, instinct with vitality to her very finger tips, going out for her first ride on a motor, going out for her very first experience of the world.

"I have never been further than this before," she said, heaving a great sigh of content, as the car, turning almost at right angles, sped over a bridge and curved towards the further side of the estuary. "Everything now is new! Everything! I've never even seen the hills this shape before. And how strange our side of the valley looks. Who would believe that was Cwmfairnog? I don't believe I belong to it a bit."

She pointed to a pale blue shadow among the shining hills showing where the little valley sank to restful, sheltered peace.

"I'm sure you don't," echoed Ned joyously. "Only I don't quite know where we belong to--unless it is everywhere."

The "we" smote on Ted's ears disagreeably as he leant over from the back between them, while the chauffeur, honest man, sat immovable in his corner as if he saw and heard nothing.

"You belong to us at present," he said laughing; "so take care you don't smash us up, Ned--we can't afford to lose her."

She laughed back at him carelessly. That was exactly what she felt. She was having a splendid time with both of them.

It was a drive never to be forgotten. Down here by the sea the frost had slackened its hold, and in sheltered corners the grass was as green as at midsummer. A robin was singing its heart out on a bramble bough, where one pale flower showed rejoicing in the winter sunshine. It looked colder in the sky than it was on earth, for overhead a great white cloud drifted like an iceberg through a sea of palest blue--a frozen-looking, chilly blue.

"Is that Plas Afon? I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Aura, as a swift turn in the road brought them to a sheltered bay almost land-locked by a rocky promontory covered with trees. It needed but one glance at these to show you that here was art, not nature. But it was art mimicking Nature in her kindest moods and bringing together from the four corners of the earth the glories of eastern and western forests, of the south and of the north. A few gold leaves still lingered on the Spanish chestnuts, the blue of the noble pine formed a background for the golden-barked willow, the silver cedar threw out its long arms across a scarlet oak, and almost to the water's edge grew rare conifers and blossoming shrubs.

"I believe you are afraid! I am," said Ned, steering for the portico.

"Who's afraid?" laughed Ted from the back seat, his eyes on the girl. "Not you or I, I'll bet. We sit free of this sort of thing. Keep your responsibilities to yourself, Ned!"

Once more Aura looked back at him and smiled brilliantly. She was not afraid, but she felt oppressed. Yet how lovely it was! A velvet lawn sloping away to the sea. Those unknown beautiful trees, each standing sentinel over a portion of God's earth, and in the sheltered nooks groups of tall grasses and hardy palms. Not a dead leaf, every tuft of herbage in its right place. And the gravel! Aura had never dreamt of such gravel before! Each pebble round--polished, glowing, half-translucent in the sunshine, like an uncut gem. She felt she could scarcely dare to walk upon the pretty things.

And it was a beautiful house too; a real fairy palace. Yes! it was like a dream--a dream of great, of exceeding beauty. There was not a discordant note in it. The man of whom Ned had told her, who had built it, who had lavished a fortune on it, and had then died in faraway Italy, leaving it to fall into the hands of Philistines, must have had----. What must he have had! Ah! well, he must have been rather like Ned Blackborough himself. For Plas Afon fitted Ned somehow in its fineness, its elusiveness.

She turned her eyes to him, and flushed; for his were on hers, thinking how Plas Afon fitted her. And in truth it did; fitted her all the more for the flush, since she held her head higher, and followed him with a still lighter, freer step.

"I am so glad," said Helen Tressilian coming forward. "This is Miss Vyvyan; Aunt Em--this is Miss Aura Graham."

"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured a tall, stately, absolutely colourless lady, who was engaged in making laborious needle-point on a tiny piece of black lining about two inches square. A tiny reel of almost invisible thread, a miniature pair of scissors, were also held in her left hand. They formed her only individuality; for the rest she got up at the right time, ate her breakfast and made appropriate breakfast remarks, and so lived through her day doing as the rest of the world did. But these came down with her in the morning and went to bed with her at night, held always in her white be-ringed left hand. Perhaps she slept with them. Anyhow they were an integral part of her waking life. If any one, thinking to be agreeable, asked her how she was getting on, she would smile gently, indulgently, and say that of course such work took time.

Ned used to feel that it annihilated Time altogether, and could he have happened on it unprotected, would for a certainty have annihilated it. But it went with her everywhere--even in the motor.

"Something quite terrible has happened, Ned," went on Helen Tressilian--she had given one look at Aura and been satisfied--"but it can't be helped. The Smith-Biggs have motored over from Aberaron--and--and--they have brought Mr. Hirsch. I sent Dr. Ramsay out with them to show them the garden, but--but they'll have to stop to lunch."

"They're welcome," retorted Ned with irritation; "I shall lunch in the garden when they've left it. We"--he looked at Aura--"only eat the fruits of the earth, you know."

"It was your cousin who asked me to lunch," began Aura gravely, whereat Ned laughed.

"You have an appalling sense of duty," he replied. "But I give in to it. Now, as I see Hirsch and Co. coming across the lawn, if we slip out by the back we shall escape them till lunch-time anyhow."

Aura looked at him doubtfully. His responsibilities, which were beginning to weigh her down, seemed to affect him not at all.

"Are you going too, Mr. Cruttenden?" asked Helen, noticing a certain hesitation on Ted's part. In truth he was undecided. He wanted to see Mr. Hirsch, and, at the same time, he wished to be with Aura. Of course he could see his chief after lunch; but supposing they did not stop to lunch?

So Ned Blackborough had the girl to himself. For a moment or two, as he led her round by the back way through thickets of rhododendrons, he felt triumphant, as a man does when he sees an opportunity before him. And then, then he forgot everything in pure delight at her eager face, in the joy of her enjoyment.

"It is the most beautiful place in the world," she cried at last, "and this is the most beautiful thing in it."

She was on her knees beside a tuft of red bronze Tyrolean saxifrage, out of whose close carpet of velvet the tiny silver-green scimitars of the iris alata curved round guarding its broad, purple-blue blossoms. For they were in the winter-garden now. Not one of those crystal palaces of palms and hot-water pipes which answer to that name in the minds of so many. No! This was a real garden, in full air, but tucked away from every breeze that blows in a cove giving on the sea. Among the rocks above the small cleft of sandy beach on which the tide lapped lazily, grew all the kindly green things innumerable which have learnt to do without the rest of winter sleep. The winding walks edged their narrow way through great tinted carpets of saxifrage and sedums, and many another sturdy-leaved coverer of bare earth. Bronze and sage and golden, brown and purple and grey, with a few blue blossoms on a creeping veronica, a few late primroses, a few early winter aconites. And through it, over all, was the fine scent of the winter heliotrope that clung to the crannies of the rocks or grew lush by the little stream, which, falling in tinkling cascades, slid along the sand into the sea. It was such a garden as every one with patience and care might have; which none but the very few take the trouble to plant. There was nothing in it to tell of wealth save an old stone sphinx jutting out by the steps which led to the tiny wedge of beach, its plinth forming a sort of jetty, beside which a boat lay moored. That had the measureless calm of Egypt in its eyes as it stood, backed by the changeful sky, the changeful sea.

"I believe it sees me," added Aura, looking up from the broad open face of the flower, her own as open, as beautiful, "and it has never seen me before. That makes me feel less strange, here where everything is new--and strange. It seems to me I have seen more to-day than in all my life before. It is so curious----"

"What? To see new things?" he answered, smiling down at her. "Isn't that the only thing worth having in life--to be able to think when you wake, 'To-day something may come to me which never came before'--to feel a sort of perpetual annunciation----"

She stood up suddenly, measuring him with narrowed eyes.

"I do not understand," she began.

He shook his head. "Oh yes, you do. I'm sure of it. Sit down on the plinth there and I'll try and tell you what I mean."

So with the sphinx above her she sat and listened. It was not much he had to say. Only the half-whimsical half-serious thoughts of a man, who, almost without knowing it, had the seeing eye for the invisible, the hearing ear for the inarticulate, who felt, vaguely, that the best part of life lay beyond the boundary set to conscious life by the majority of men.

In formulated shape it was all new to her, but something in her, she knew not what, found it familiar, approved, and her face showed her approval, her interest.

"I see," she said slowly, "and the message is 'fear not' I like that."

"Yes!" he replied absently, clasping his hands over one knee and leaning back against the plinth to watch a cormorant that was coming back from fishing beyond the bar, a solitary swift, black speck upon the blue. "It would be good if one could get at it. We risk life every day for what we call love or money, but we are in a blue funk about the truth, because the truth is that neither love nor money--you know, don't you, that I am awfully, hideously rich?"

"Ted told me you were the richest man in England."

"The devil he did!" laughed Ned. "I beg your pardon, but that wasn't in the bond. Anyhow I'm beginning to feel as if I could with pleasure sell all that I have, and follow--something else."

"But you have no right," began Aura, "you can't shirk your responsibilities."

"Et tu, Brute," he murmured pathetically, "My dear creature! You haven't any idea how I loathe being rich. Money doesn't buy what I like--freedom. No! confound it, it is always getting in the way. There!" he added resignedly as he rose, "I told you so. There is that pampered, powdered beast of a footman whom I'm ruining body and soul by my ridiculous claims, coming to tell us lunch is ready. And--and we are enjoying ourselves."

He looked at her as he held out his hand to help her to rise. She gave him hers frankly enough, but drew it away hastily as if something in the touch of his gave her offence, and a quick frown came to her face.

"That has nothing to do with it," she replied austerely, "You have no right to keep your guests waiting."

"If I had your sense of duty, I--I should kill that fellow," he remarked coolly, as the footman, stopping short at a respectful distance among the saxifrages, said in the tone of voice in which a congregation echoes the responses in church.

"If you please, your lordship, luncheon is served."

Aura looked grave for an instant, then she laughed. She was never quite sure whether to take Ned Blackborough aux grands sÉrieux or not. She admired him, however, when, entering the dining-room, the glitter and clatter of silver, the chatter and laughter of the guests, and the consciousness that every one was looking at her to see who had made their host so late, gave her a desire to run away. He was so easy, so self-possessed, withal so clearly determined not to let any one interfere with his plan, which was apparently to sit beside her.

"I beg your pardon, Helen," he said cheerfully, "Miss Graham and I were in the winter garden. Will you sit here, Miss Graham. Ah! Lady Smith-Biggs, so glad you've come, and how is Sir Joseph? Don't let me disturb you, Ramsay. You fill the place better than I should. Is there room for me by you, Aunt Em? Hullo, where's Hirsch?"

This, as he circled the table brought him to a vacant seat beside Aunt Em; but also next to Aura to whom he said in an undertone, "They'll hand you things you can eat."

The butler's introduction of an elaborate silver dish with the mystic whisper, "Brown bread and butter cutlets," emphasised the remark, and she helped herself decorously with a spoon and fork.

"Mr. Hirsch and Mr. Cruttenden went off smoking somewhere," replied Helen, "Ah! here they come at last."

"My dear Mrs. Tressilian," exploded Mr. Hirsch in his strident voice, "I am overwhelmed, but when one gets to talking about money----"

"There is always the devil to pay, Hirsch," put in Ned.

"Ah! my dear Blackborough, wie gehts. What an entrancing place. Why don't you buy it?"

"It is not for sale," replied Ned, "and it's quite enough to hire it, I assure you, Hirsch."

Mr. Hirsch laughed in his loud unfettered fashion.

"Ah! my dear Blackborough, you always pay too much for everything. You are the sellers' natural prey."

Aura who had helped herself out of another silver dish to something which the butler called fraises a la creme en caisses, because it looked to her like strawberries and cream, gave a quick glance at Ned.

Paid for; yes, of course, everything must have been paid for. In an instant all her pleasure became transmuted to gold. The very strawberries--strawberries at Christmas! What must they not have cost? And they had been got for her. She felt, hotly, as if she were being bribed.

"If you will finish your lunch," came Ned's voice in an undertone, "we can start back as soon afterwards as you choose. Yes! Hirsch," he added out loud, "I know I'm done all round. But it amuses people, and it doesn't hurt me. The only use of money is to get rid of it."

"I never, Mrs. Tressilian," protested Lady Smith-Biggs plaintively, "quite understand what your cousin means."

"I don't wonder," replied Helen soothingly, then smiled to herself, for, in truth, the lady in question seldom understood anything, but, being the wife of a conservative manufacturer who stood for his native town, thought it her duty to take an interest in social and political questions. "Ned loves paradoxes, but he really hates being cheated as much as any one."

"I only meant, Lady Smith-Biggs," put in Lord Blackborough, gravely, "that I am quite willing to subscribe--as I am sure Sir Joseph does--to all the great truths which underlie our commercial prosperity. That is to say, first, that everything is worth what it will fetch, and a trifle more for underhand percentages. Secondly, that nothing can be called cheating in an open market. Thirdly, that truth is the affair of the purchaser, or his creator."

"Bah! my dear Lord Blackborough," laughed Mr. Hirsch, "you would have a world without money; it would be a pretty paradise."

"But," protested Lady Smith-Biggs again, her diamond ear-rings twinkling--they were so magnificent that they made one forget the redness and the fatness of the face against which they shone, "I really do not understand. If you have no money, how can you pay your bills?"

"I pay mine by cheque," remarked Ned with a side-glance at Aura. After her sudden desire to escape which his aside had checked, she had become amused, then interested, by the conversation. And now his allusion made her flush up, then smile, for she was beginning to realise that this curious world, in which money played so important a part, was really the world in which she had always lived. She had not seen the token; that was all.

"But, my dear Ned," said Miss Vyvyan placidly, "you can't pay everything by cheque. The bank doesn't like cashing small sums. I know when I send for my thread to Honiton--I have to send there, you know, it is so fine," she explained to Lady Smith-Biggs, laying her hand on the tiny black roll which, as usual, was beside her plate, "I always have to send a postal order."

"Exactly so," breathed Lady Smith-Biggs with a sigh of relief; "so you are wrong, Lord Blackborough. Why! even the very children have pennies. I used to think it rather dreadful their doing so much shopping for their mothers, but Sir Joseph says you cannot train them too early to understand the real value of money. And I am sure he is right, for it is quite impossible to live without it."

"That is a question which we ought to refer to Miss Graham," remarked Ned Blackborough coolly, "I believe she has never even seen a sixpence."

If a bomb had fallen on the lunch-table it could not have produced a greater effect. Mr. Hirsch sat petrified, his fork halfway to his mouth. All eyes were turned on Aura, who bore the brunt with smiles, for there was something of pure mischief in her host's face which was infectious. Even Ted, over the way, waited, amused.

"I believe she did, once, see a sovereign," continued Ned. "Perhaps she will tell you what she did with it."

The girl's face dimpled with laughter. "I gave it to the cockatoo."

Dynamite could not possibly have been more disconcerting.

"The cockatoo!" echoed Mr. Hirsch automatically, as, becoming aware that the sole au vin blanc on his fork was dripping on to his waistcoat, he dabbed blindly at the spot with his napkin. "And--and may I ask, my dear young lady, what--what the cockatoo did with it?"

"He wouldn't eat it," said Aura.

"And so," interrupted Ted rather viciously, "it was thrown into the stream."

Aura turned swiftly on Ned. This was news. "Did you?" she began.

"So there it lies," remarked Ned, "as the beginning of a Welsh gold-mine. Make a prospectus out of that, Hirsch; it would be as true as most of them, I expect."

"But I do not quite understand," protested Lady Smith-Biggs once more, her pale blue eyes fixed vacantly on Aura. "What! you have never seen a sixpence--how--how dreadful!"

"That is easily remedied," remarked Peter Ramsay; "I believe I have so much in my pocket, anyhow."

"Stay a bit, Ramsay," said Lord Blackborough; "Miss Graham's ignorance is not confined to sixpence. She is generally unacquainted with the coin of the realm."

Mr. Hirsch's eyes were almost starting out of his head, partly in admiration of the girl whom he now discovered to be exceedingly beautiful. "Gott in Himmel!" he muttered, "I believe I have half a crown an' two shillings."

"Capital!" cried Ned. "Simmonds, take the plate round, and then bring it to Miss Graham."

"Admirable! Admirable! Blackborough, mon cher! You have imagination!" exploded Mr. Hirsch, fumbling excitedly in his pockets. "What luck! I have a two-florin bit, and I swore at them when they gave it me! Ah! young lady! one does not often meet one so old--a thousand pardons, mademoiselle, but at your age one need not be so afraid." His good-natured face was brimful of kindliness and honest enjoyment, and Aura responded to it.

"You needn't be in the least afraid," she smiled, "I shall be twenty-one on New Year's Day."

The information was welcome to at least two of the party, and the others, carried away out of the conventional for the time, applauded the confidence.

"Soh!" exclaimed Mr. Hirsch, who was now busy with coins and a silver salver, while the butler and two footmen stood behind him sniggering. "Aha! young lady, you began a new era; ah! we must all send you a--what do you call Étrennes in English to commemorate this extraordinary--Mein Gott! Has any one a three-penny bit?"

So with much laughter, Lady Smith-Biggs absolutely contributing from a very small purse a whole five-shilling piece, a complete set of coins was handed to Aura.

"With the company's compliments, Miss," said the butler.

"That ends your hours of innocence, Miss Graham," remarked Ned Blackborough gravely, as the ladies left the room.

It did not end Aura's ordeal, however, for, once in the drawing-room, Lady Smith-Biggs begged to be introduced in form.

"Oh! I am sorry," said Aura innocently, reaching up to the good lady's outstretched waggling hand; "but I always shake hands lower down. Is that the right way?"

The question verged on the impossible, since Lady Smith-Biggs lived in the highest circles. But she ignored it, and all her good breeding did not prevent her descending on the girl with a perfect cataract of questions. Where did she live, who was her father, had she any brothers or sisters?

Aura began to grow restive.

"No!" she replied shortly; then fearing she had been too incisive, added, "I have often wished I had. I should have liked them."

Helen Tressilian coming to the rescue looked at her with soft approving eyes. "They would have liked you, I'm sure. I expect you are very fond of children."

The girl turned to her impulsively. "Yes--very! You don't know how often I've wished that I had a baby."

It was worse than the sixpence. Lady Smith-Biggs gasped.

Her matronly breast heaved. She cast a nervous glance towards her daughter, who was providentially occupied in looking at Miss Vyvyan's lace-work.

"My dear," she said majestically, "you haven't a mother, so you'll excuse me telling you that we don't say that sort of thing in society."

Aura blushed a furious red.

"Why not?" she asked, and her voice had a militant ring in it.

"O Ned, Ned!" whispered Helen Tressilian to her cousin, as at that moment the gentleman entered the room, "for Heaven's sake take her away from us soon or she will be spoilt!"

He grasped the situation in a moment. "I'm afraid we must be starting, Miss Graham. We are going to row you across the estuary, and then we can walk home over the hills. You have never been in a boat, have you?"

"No!" said poor Aura, suddenly feeling inclined to cry. It seemed to her as if she knew nothing and had seen nothing.