Lady Selina laid down her pen—a quill—smiling pensively. Early in life she had been taught to smile by a mother with half a dozen attractive but dowerless daughters, who had smiled themselves obediently into wives and matrons. Critics admitted that the smile had quality. No derision twisted it. Artlessly, with absolute sincerity, Lady Selina scattered her smiles as largesse. Royalties know the value of such smiles, and so do politicians.

Her eyes—blue, heavily-lidded, with arched brows above them—wandered from her desk, the desk of a busy lady of the manor, to the portrait of her late husband which hung above the chimney-piece. Henry Chandos had been her senior by some five and twenty years. During another quarter of a century of tranquil married life Lady Selina had loved, honoured and obeyed him as the dominant partner. A stranger, looking at the portrait, might have guessed that the Squire of Upworthy—if physiognomy is to be trusted (which it isn’t)—was likely to inspire honour and obedience rather than love. An uncompromising chin, a Wellingtonia gigantea nose and steel-grey eyes overhung by beetling brows, bespoke the autocrat. He wore a stained red hunting coat and grasped a hunting horn in his left hand. Hounds came swiftly to the toot of that horn; and eager horsemen, you may be sure, followed at a respectful distance. Henry Chandos never bullied his “field.” He checked “thrusters” with a glance. The wags christened him “Old Gimlets.” And in the County Council, upon the Bench, in and out of his own house, he exercised a gift of silence. His neighbours knew that he took his own line over any country regardless of obstacles. If damage ensued he paid for it generously.

When at work in her sitting-room, Lady Selina was always conscious of her husband’s portrait, sensible that his counterfeit presentment looked down approvingly upon her labours. He, too, had worked hard in this fine room, and since his death the widow had carried on that work along his lines, as, with his last breath, he had entreated her to do.

She rose from her chair and crossed to the sofa on which were piled many red flannel cloaks. On a table lay pound packages of tea, and a small basket holding gills of gin discreetly covered with a white napkin. These were her particular gifts to her own people, to be bestowed presently, coram publico, before tea was served on the lawn beneath the approving eyes of the doctor, parson, and such of the local gentry as might “drop in.”

As she rose, glancing at the neat piles of books and letters, a sigh escaped her. Nobody knew how much her work perplexed and bothered her. If her smile disarmed criticism, it was partly, perhaps, because pathos informed it. At times it seemed to say: “I want to please people, but it’s horribly difficult.” No business training had been vouchsafed her, except such knowledge as had come from dealing with servants and tradesmen. In the management of a large estate her husband had never consulted her. And yet—a tremendous tribute—he had left her everything during her lifetime, scorning to impose any conditions should she marry again. Possibly he knew that she would not do so.

As she stood beside the sofa, plump and prosperous, erect mentally and physically, an intelligent child might have proclaimed her to be what she was, a superb specimen of the English chÂtelaine. Obviously a gentlewoman, courteous alike to the Lord-Lieutenant of her county or to the humblest of her many dependents, exacting respect from all and affection from many, she had just passed her fifty-fifth birthday. But her face remained free from wrinkles, smoothly pink as if glowing autumnally after a sunny summer; and her features were on the happiest terms with each other, firmly but delicately modelled, prominent, but not aggressively so.

She wore clothes of no particular mode that became her admirably. Her butler entered the room.

“Well, Stimson, what is it?”

Her voice was very pleasant and articulate. At the mere sound of it the austere face of the old retainer relaxed. Deprecatingly, he informed his mistress that Mr. Goodrich had arrived.

Lady Selina frowned slightly. Her guests had been invited for four. It was not yet half-past three.

“Show Mr. Goodrich on to the lawn. Tell him, with my compliments, that I will join him there in a few minutes.”

“Very good, my lady. Mr. Goodrich expressed a wish to see your ladyship before the others came.”

Lady Selina retorted sharply:

“Bless the man! Why couldn’t you say so at once? I’ll see Mr. Goodrich here.”

Stimson withdrew. Lady Selina returned to her desk and sat down. Perhaps she wished to impress her parson, an old friend, that she was busy. Beholding the lady of the manor engrossed in multifarious duties, Mr. Goodrich might consider himself courteously admonished. None the less, she received him with a gracious smile, and expressed herself as glad to see him. The parson said genially:

“A charming day for our little fÊte.”

As he sat down near her, Lady Selina eyed him interrogatively, divining something unpleasant. She was well aware that her general staff, so to speak, were self-trained in the art of what is now called “camouflage.” She had learnt to distrust the smiles of others, knowing well that her own smiles often served to disguise her feelings.

Mr. Goodrich settled himself comfortably in his chair, and crossed a pair of shapely legs which in his opinion ought to wear gaiters, archdiaconal if not episcopal. He, too, like the lady of the manor, presented a plump and prosperous exterior to a changing and hypercritical world. From his relaxed, easy attitude one might guess that this was not a soldier of the church militant, the more robust physically because, perhaps, he habitually exercised his body instead of his mind, an indefatigable walker and talker rather than a thinker. He looked his best, indeed, from the back of a fat cob, not in the pulpit or at the lectern, although his perfectly tied white cravat was austerely clerical. Lady Selina wasted no time:

“You have something disagreeable to tell me?”

“No, no. Disagreeable is too strong a word. Worrying—m’yes. I dislike being appealed to in such matters.”

“In what matters, my dear friend?”

“I went for a ride this morning, and—a—happened to look in upon old Ephraim Exton. He asked me to speak to you, and the day being so—a—propitious, I was beguiled against my better judgment into saying I would.”

His slight hesitations did not annoy Lady Selina. She accepted them as homage, a soaping of the ways, a desire upon the part of her staff to “spare” their chief anything approximating to a shock. But she said humorously:

“Then why don’t you?”

The parson smiled at her, nodding his handsome head.

“Old Ephraim is sorely troubled about his best cow.”

“But I’m not a cow doctor.”

“No, no, but Ephraim thinks that the trouble is not so much with the cow, a valuable animal, so he tells me, but with the cowhouse. He thinks it needs rebuilding.”

Lady Selina said trenchantly:

“You mean he said so to you?”

“M’yes. Not that he complained. He pointed out to me that the roof might fall in on top of the cows.”

Lady Selina laughed, but her forehead was not quite smooth as she replied:

“I see, Ephraim Exton didn’t complain, but he persuaded you to do it. Really, the old fellow is quite hopeless.”

Mr. Goodrich nodded.

“M’yes; he so impressed me this morning.” Then he added genially:

“His son, John, is a bright young fellow—um?”

“Bright? He may brighten into a fire-brand. He labels himself Socialist. I shall do my duty, Mr. Goodrich.”

The parson purred pleasantly, rubbing his hands.

“You’ll rebuild the cowsheds——? How good of you——!”

“No.” She spoke sharply. “The man’s a fool to house delicate high-bred stock in ramshackle buildings. I’ve remitted part of his rent.”

“We all know how kind you are about that.”

Lady Selina made a deprecating gesture. Then, with her usual energy, she set forth her case as against that of her tenant. Because of certain concessions, Exton had undertaken to keep the farm buildings in reasonable repair. But the money which ought to have been spent on roofs had been diverted to the speculative purchase of valuable stock. The parson lent an attentive and sympathetic ear, but he had heard the tale before. One word explained the trouble as between landlord and tenant—Compromise. Secretly, he was of opinion that outside repairs should be done by landlords, regardless of other concessions, but he didn’t say so to the lady of the manor. Plain speech meant an indictment of Gridley, the bailiff, the power behind the throne. Lady Selina might send for Gridley. Indeed she had done so before. And always Gridley—bother him!—got the best of such talk.

Lady Selina ended on the highest note.

“Gridley wants me to give Exton notice to quit.”

“Oh, dear! Won’t that be very disagreeable?”

“Very. Do you shirk doing your duty, Mr. Goodrich, when it happens to be disagreeable?”

The parson answered quite truthfully:

“Sometimes.”

Lady Selina smiled graciously, and the smile deepened as her two children entered from the lawn. Brian, the son, was a handsome young man of twenty-eight, a dashing hussar, cut to pattern. Cicely deserves more attention. She had been born ten years after her brother, arriving on earth as a surprise packet, so to speak. Intelligence sparkled in her soft brown eyes, a charming alertness, often so distinctively the attribute of children born to parents no longer young. Nobody could call her a beauty. The rather smug comeliness of regular features had been denied her. But her colouring was excellent, the clear red and brown of the out-o’-doors girl. Her laugh warmed the cockles of all hearts; her manners made her welcome everywhere. Fortunately for her, she had been sent to school, much to the surprise of Lady Selina’s kinsmen. At school she had achieved some sort of detachment from the cut-and-dried traditions of Upworthy Manor. None could call her a rebel, but in less robust moments her mother wondered whether the daring experiment had been altogether a success. She could read her son easier than her daughter.

Brian said gaily:

“The goodies are weighing in, Mums.” Then he turned to the parson, holding out his hand. “And how are you coming up this fine day, Mr. Goodrich?”

The parson shook his head. “I don’t know that I’m coming up, Brian.” He smiled paternally at the young man whom he had baptised and confirmed, adding regretfully: “I’m toddling down the shady slopes of sixty. Cicely, my dear, how well you look!”

“Thank you, Mr. Goodrich.”

Brian approached the sofa.

“Shall we cart out this stuff?” he asked.

“One moment.”

Brian’s blue eyes lingered upon his mother’s serious face.

“Hullo! What’s up? You look portentous.”

“I am worried, my dear.”

“Poor old Mums! What about?”

She hesitated, glancing at the parson now erect upon the hearthrug and smiling blandly. As a rule, Lady Selina acted after much indecision, and discussed—not too often—her actions afterwards. But at this particular moment she felt upset, cornered by circumstances, upon the sharp horns of a dilemma. She had never evicted a tenant. To do so was intolerably unpleasant. But these Extons, complaining behind her back, for ever leaving undone what they had promised to do, exasperated her beyond bearing. She answered her son quietly:

“The Extons. Tell me your candid opinion of Ephraim Exton.”

Brian replied promptly:

“One of the best.”

“Best of what?”

“Best of the best.”

Cicely murmured derisively:

“How illuminating!”

“Shut up, Cis. Mother knows what I mean.”

“I don’t,” said Lady Selina. “Your best of the best is always behind with his rent.”

Goodrich interposed a seasonable word. He was prepared to side with Brian against his august mother. The bishop of the diocese had been appointed by a Liberal Prime Minister. His lordship held advanced views upon the right administration of landed estates.

“He is a sound Churchman, Lady Selina.”

“Can you say as much of his son?” asked Lady Selina.

“’Um! Laodicean. I admit it—Laodicean.”

“Fiddle! John Exton is a free-thinker. Children——!”

Brian and Cicely looked at her gravely. Cicely realised that her mother was dredging, as she called it, anxious to sweep public opinion into her net. And Cicely, not Brian, was well aware that public opinion counted with the lady of the manor, although she never admitted as much.

Lady Selina said with intense solemnity:

“I believe it is my duty to give Ephraim Exton notice to quit.”

Cicely exclaimed vehemently:

“Darling Mother, please don’t!”

Brian shrugged his shoulders, muttering:

“I went ferreting with old Ephraim. That ought to count.”

Cicely gave a better reason.

“The Extons were on the land here before us. That ought to count.”

Very wisely the parson held his tongue. Lady Selina replied tartly:

“My dears, the Extons may be here after us, if I allow sentiment to overrule common sense.”

Having repeated this golden axiom so often on the lips of her late husband, Lady Selina paused to stare at the lugubrious countenance of her butler who had entered the room as she was speaking.

“Bless me! Stimson? Has the roof fallen in?”

“Not yet, my lady. The carrier has forgotten the buns.”

“No buns! I shall have to give the dear children pennies instead.”

She hurried out to find the necessary coppers, followed leisurely by Stimson. Brian laughed.

“What a situation! My Lady Bountiful—bunless!”

Cicely crossed the room, and laid her hand upon the parson’s sleeve, looking up into his pleasant face.

“Oh, Mr. Goodrich, this is awful.”

“Well, well, Cicely, really, you know, the little ones would sooner have pennies.”

Cicely stared at him in amazement. Perhaps, for the first time, she beheld her pastor as one concerned with parochial trifles oblivious of great issues. She said almost gaspingly:

“I’m speaking of the Extons. Surely, surely, it can’t be Mother’s duty to turn out such old tenants.”

At this Brian pulled himself together. Cis, evidently, was getting out of hand.

“You can bet your boots, Cis, that Mums knows best. Don’t you run riot, old thing! Any fool can see that she loathes the job as much as you do.”

“I suppose so,” Cicely admitted reluctantly. “And if Mr. Goodrich thinks Mother right——?” She looked at the parson, interrogatively.

“Exton is certainly an unlucky farmer, still——”

“Suppose Mother turns him out, and suppose it kills him? Everybody will say that she has done him in.”

Mr. Goodrich raised an expostulatory finger.

“Done him in? What an expression!”

Brian, meanwhile, had sauntered up to the open window. Suddenly he turned.

“Dr. Pawley is outside. Oughtn’t I to ask him in here?”

“Of course,” said Cicely. “And we’ll find out what he thinks.”