Stimson ushered him into the big drawing-room. Left alone for a minute, he stared, as Grimshaw had done, at the full-length portraits on the walls. The ladies smiled down on him. Sir Marmaduke Chandos, the Cavalier, curled a derisive lip, not offensively. He seemed to be saying: “S’death! we need a tincture of blood less blue. Take the wench, and a benison on ye both.”

Lady Selina sailed in, followed by Cicely.

Immediately the man perceived a change in the maid. She appeared to him older. And something had vanished from her face. What was it? Youthful radiancy—vitality——? He couldn’t find the word he wanted. She greeted him with perfect ease of manner. But her hand rested supinely warm in his, and he thought: “How soft her bones are.” Possibly she was tired; and this home-coming must have been a bitter-sweet experience. Beneath her eyes lay shadows, delicately tinted with lavender. All trace of the V.A.D. had disappeared. Her mourning, so he decided, became her. In it she looked distinguished. At any rate, she appealed to him more irresistibly than ever, altogether feminine, a dear woman certain to develop into a noble and gracious personality.

He drank a cup of tea, and listened to Lady Selina, who talked in the grand manner, investing even weather conditions with a sort of aristocratic gloss. All the Danecourts talked like this when they wished to suppress feeling and emotion. Without a taint of affectation, Lady Selina conveyed the impression that she towered above a crumbling world. Marie Antoinette must have raised to heaven just such a dignified head when she rode on a tumbril through the streets of Paris to the place of execution. Lady Selina quoted her brother:

“Our order is doomed. Win or lose, this dreadful war means a dÉbÂcle for us.”

Wilverley assured her that he took a less gloomy view. Lady Selina smiled frostily.

“Saltaire has lost his butler, who has been with him five-and-twenty years. Two parlourmaids have taken his place. One wears a bow upon her tousled head; she refuses to wear a proper cap. My poor brother said to me: ‘Selina, this is the beginning of the end.’ I agreed with him.”

After tea, when Wilverley was wondering how he could discreetly justify Mrs. Roden’s faith in him as a man, Lady Selina said suavely:

“I daresay you will like to smoke your cigarette in the garden. A year ago it was in full beauty. To-day——! Well—a wilderness. I can’t bear to walk in it. Cicely will show you the roses. I must attack my neglected correspondence.”

“I should like to see the roses,” said Wilverley.

Cicely and he wandered into the garden, which looked, so Wilverley thought, very much as usual. At the Court he had discovered, not without amusement, that a sadly diminished staff, if put to it, can achieve remarkable results. Gazing about him, he said genially:

“Your mother exaggerates a little. I see no signs of a wilderness.”

Cicely replied quickly:

“Really, we are muddling along nicely. Mother will be all right in a day or two. Danecourt was horribly depressing. And Brian——”

“Tell me,” he whispered. “I offered no wretched condolences. What can be said?”

“Nothing. Even I—I can only guess how she feels. She adored Brian, although she never showed it. I am so sorry for her that I could cry my eyes out here and now. Because she bottles things up, it makes it just twice as hard for me.”

“I understand,” he said. “I understand exactly how you feel.”

She looked sweetly at him, faintly blushing.

“Do you, Arthur?”

They found the bench; Wilverley lighted a cigarette. The sunk rose-garden faced them, surrounded by the yew hedges. In the centre the amorini guarded the fountain, which didn’t play in war-time. This spot was the sanctuary, known as Mon Plaisir. Upon the white stone bench had sat the lovely lady for whom the pleasaunce was planted, and in which, according to tradition, she had passed so many hours kept a prisoner by a jealous husband. Cicely told the story to Wilverley. A more experienced lover would have used this romantic legend as a peg upon which to hang his own love-tale. Wilverley, however, was not apt at transpositions. He listened attentively, charmed by Cicely’s voice, but determined, as soon as she had finished, to plead his suit in words, as has been said, already rehearsed.

Cicely’s voice died away.

Wilverley said incisively:

“Poor little dear! Beastly for her, wasn’t it? No man could coop up a wife that way in our times.”

“I don’t know, Arthur. In another sense, women coop themselves up. Some of us are driven—driven into coops.”

He was astonished that she spoke so sadly, but, knowing little of women and their tendency to make all argument personal, he never supposed that what she said applied to herself. In a different tone he continued briskly:

“My wife would have a free hand, Cicely. By the way, I have been talking a lot with Tiddy whilst you were at Danecourt.”

“With Tiddy? Do you call her Tiddy?”

He laughed.

“Of course I do; everybody does. A jolly clever girl, sharp as a needle—a rattling good sort. She will bike over here next Sunday.”

“Oh! Does Tiddy know that you are here to-day?”

“No.”

Chandos silence spread its impenetrable veil over Cicely. What was Tiddy up to? Had she carried out her preposterous threat? Was she really trying to capture Arthur? An uncomfortable, disconcerting emotion, which Cicely would have repudiated vehemently if anybody had dared to call it jealousy, quickened within. Wilverley, happily unconscious of virginal alarums and excursions, went on cantering at his big fence.

“I have something to show you, dear.”

“Have you?”

He produced triumphantly the tiny handkerchief embroidered with a double “C” intertwined and encircled with a wreath. Lady Selina had presented a dainty dozen of these to Cicely on her seventeenth birthday, a prÆmium diligentiÆ.

Cicely, faintly smiling, gazed at the small square of cambric, and then at Wilverley’s flushed, eager face. And at the moment, incredible as it may seem to men, she felt, like Mrs. Roden, maternal. The prosperous magnate of nearly forty became a jolly boy. Somehow she guessed that in many things he would remain simple and boyish. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. He reminded her of Brian going in to bat on the village green, and quite sure that he was going to knock the bowling about.

He whispered:

“I’ve heartened myself up with a squint at this, many and many a time.”

As he spoke, he put it reverently to his lips and kissed it. Cicely was amazed. She had always imagined Wilverley, engrossed with his never-ending activities, reading dry treatises upon agriculture, poring over the blue tracings of plans, prodding fat bullocks, and so forth——

Two dimples appeared in her cheeks.

“How absurd you are!”

“Are you angry because I am absurd about you?”

He folded the hanky carefully and replaced it in his breast-pocket. Then he valiantly captured her hand, a notable effort for him. Cicely made no protest. An agreeable languor stole upon her. Somehow Wilverley’s firm clasp warmed her chilled sensibilities. She sighed. A midsummer’s sun, still high in the heavens, poured down his beams upon the rose-garden. Out of the more old-fashioned roses came a sweet, pervasive fragrance. From the shrubs and trees beyond Mon Plaisir floated the flutings of the warblers. Cicely was learned enough in Arcadian lore to distinguish their particular notes.

“I want you,” he whispered.

Her tissues seemed to relax, as she recalled these very words on the lips of her mother, when they met in the big hall after news of Brian’s death. It was much to be wanted; more than she had reckoned it to be. To give, to go on giving, generously and selflessly, might be her true mission in life. Parsons preached that gospel from the pulpit, but till now she had never apprehended its significance and force. Yes—force. Was there, indeed, a driving power greater, immeasurably greater, than the human will, which informed all human action? Was marriage with Wilverley the appointed way out of her worries and perplexities? His strong arm stole round her waist; he pressed her to him. She recognised and admired his self-restraint. And something told her that he was really strong, able to bear her burdens whatever they might be. But—a cold douche of honesty made her shiver—she didn’t love him as surely he deserved to be loved. What had passed through his mind as he rode to this artless wooing invaded hers. She ought to be thrilling and yearning; she ought to be feeling that this was the greatest moment of her life. And it wasn’t. Bravely she confronted a fundamental fact.

“Arthur——”

“Yes, you sweet little woman?”

“You say you want me. How much?”

It is not easy for a man to be absolutely honest with a maid when his arm is round her waist, and he feels her yielding to his importunity.

“Tremendously,” he answered.

She remained silent. Encouraged by this, Wilverley pleaded his suit. He had always wanted her. She was exactly right. With happy inspiration he painted in vivid colours their future together. She could help him in his work; he could help her. They both loved the country. They would work and play together, a charming partnership. When he finished, she said nervously:

“Suppose—suppose that I didn’t quite care for you as you seem to care for me?”

“What do you mean, my dearest?”

“It’s so hard to put it into words. I am ever so fond of you, Arthur. And I do want to be loved. You—you have drawn a picture which moves me more than I can say. But somehow you haven’t swept me bang off my feet. And that is my fault, not yours. Perhaps—I don’t know—I am simply incapable of—of letting myself go. And when I look at mother and other women of my family, I wonder if they are all like that. I wonder if—if it is part of the curse——”

“The curse? Bless my soul!”

“I mean the curse of belonging to families that think it right and wise to suppress feeling. I am half Chandos and half Danecourt. Mother and Uncle have never let themselves go. They couldn’t. It is part of their nature to wear a mask. They wear it night and day. Till it becomes a sort of hard crust. I—I wish I could talk as Tiddy does.”

“I understand, Cicely. I think you put it most awfully well. But this feeling will come. I should hate to have you——” he paused, and ended with the words which had made such an impression on him: “Yelp and rush at me.”

“Do you mean that you want me as I am, that you will trust to chance about my caring properly later?”

“Trust to chance? No, no. I have never trusted to chance. I am confident, dear, that I shall make you care if you give yourself to me. The feelings you speak of are dormant. It will be my great privilege to awaken them.”

He kissed the cheek slightly turned from him.

The fence had been leaped.

And afterwards, just what he had envisaged came to pass easily and naturally. The selection of a right engagement ring was discussed, a visit to London, all the pleasant little plans so dear to people about to marry. Before they sought Lady Selina, Cicely asked a direct question:

“You will help to make things better in Upworthy?”

“Um! Do you mean now?”

“Oh, the sooner the better.”

“If your mother asks for my advice——I can speak to you quite candidly, darling. To put things right at Upworthy means, in one word—money.”

“Mother knows that, and she says that her means are diminishing.”

“Heavy taxation—likely to be heavier. It would be quite impracticable to put things right out of income.”

“Oh, dear!”

“Don’t look so miserable! Improvements are investments. I borrow money for my improvements—everybody does; and your mother must do the same.”

“She won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because she is terrified of debt; because, I believe, she promised my father not to encumber the property.”

Wilverley nodded his head. Then, hastily, he changed the subject.