CHAPTER VII.

‘HIS HERTE BATHED IN A BATH OF BLISSE.’

Daphne’s boat came home from the builder’s at the end of three weeks of longing and expectation, a light wherry-shaped boat, not the tub-like sea-going dingey, but a neat little craft which would have done no discredit to a Thames waterman. Daphne was in raptures; Mr. Turchill was impressed into her service, in nowise reluctant; and all the mornings of that happy June were devoted to the art of rowing a pair of sculls on the rapid Avon. Never had the river been in better condition; there was plenty of water, but there had been no heavy rains since April, and the river had not overflowed its natural limits; the stream ran smoothly between its green and willowy banks, just such a lenient tide as Horace loved to sing.

When Daphne took up a new thing it was a passion with her. She was at the exuberant age when all fresh fancies are fevers. She had had her fever for water-colours, for battledore and shuttlecock, for crewel-work. She had risen at daybreak to pursue each new delight: but this fancy for the boat was the most intense of all her fevers, for the love of the river was a love dating from infancy, and she had never been able to gratify it thoroughly until now. Every evening in the billiard-room she addressed the same prayer to Edgar Turchill, when she bade him good-night: ‘Come as early as you can to-morrow morning, please.’ And to do her pleasure the Squire of Hawksyard rose at cockcrow and rode six miles in the dewy morning, so as to be at the boat-house in Sir Vernon’s meadow before Arden church clock struck seven.

Let him be there as early as he might Daphne was always waiting for him, fresh as the morning, in her dark blue linen gown and sailor hat, the sleeves tucked up to the elbow to give free play to her supple wrists, her arms lily-white in spite of wind and weather.

‘It’s much too good of you,’ said she, in her careless way, not ungrateful, but with the air of a girl who thinks men were created to wait upon her. ‘How very early you must have been up!’

‘Not so much earlier than you. It is only an hour’s ride from Hawksyard, even when I take it gently.’

‘And you have had no breakfast, I daresay.’

‘I have had nothing since the tumbler of St. Galmier you poured out for me in the billiard-room last night.’

‘Poor—dear—soul!’ sighed Daphne, with a pause after each word. ‘How quite too shocking! We most institute a gipsy tea-kettle. This kind of thing shall not occur again.’

She looked at him with her loveliest smile, as much as to say: ‘I have made you my slave, but I mean your bondage to be pleasant.’

When he came to the boat-house next morning he found a kettle singing gaily on a rakish-looking gipsy-stove, a table laid for breakfast inside the boat-house, a smoking dish of eggs and bacon, and the faithful Bink doing butler, rough and rustic, but devoted.

‘I wonder whether she has read Don Juan?’ thought Edgar. The water, the gipsy breakfast, the sweet face smiling at him, reminded him of an episode in that poem. ‘Were I shipwrecked to-morrow I would not wish to awaken in a fairer paradise,’ he said to himself, while Bink adjusted a camp-stool for him, breathing his hardest all the time. ‘This is a delicious surprise,’ he exclaimed.

‘The eggs and bacon?’

‘No; the privilege of a _tête-à-tête_ breakfast with you.’

‘Tête-à-fiddlestick; Bink is my chaperon. If you are impertinent I will ask Mr. MacCloskie to join us to-morrow morning. Sugar? Yes, of course, sugar and cream. Aren’t the eggs and bacon nice? I cooked them. It was Bink’s suggestion. I was going to confine myself to rolls and strawberry jam; but the eggs and bacon are more fun, aren’t they? You should have heard how they frizzled and sputtered in the frying-pan. I had no idea bacon was so noisy.’

‘Your first lesson in cookery,’ said Edgar. ‘We shall hear of you graduating at South Kensington.’

‘My first lesson, indeed! Why, I fried pancakes over a spirit-lamp ever so many times at Asnières; and I don’t know which smelt nastiest, the pancakes or the lamp. Our dormitory got into awful disgrace about it.’

She had seated herself on her camp-stool and was drinking tea, while she watched Edgar eat the eggs and bacon with an artistic interest in the process.

‘Is the bacon done?’ she asked. ‘Did I frizzle it long enough?’

‘It’s simply delicious; I never ate such a breakfast.’

It was indeed a meal in fairyland. The soft clear morning light, the fresh yet balmy atmosphere, the sunlit river and shadowy boat-house, all things about and around lent their enchantment to the scene. Edgar forgot that he had ever cared for anyone in the world except this girl, with the soft gray eyes and sunny hair, and all too captivating smile. To be with her, to watch her, to enjoy her girlishness and bright vivacity, to minister to her amusement and wait upon her fancies—what better use could a young man, free to take his pleasure where he liked, find for his life? And far away in the future, in the remoteness of years to come, Edgar Turchill saw this lovely being, tamed and sobered and subdued into the pattern of his ideal wife, losing no charm that made her girlhood lovely, but gaining the holier graces of womanhood and wifehood. To-day she was little more than a child, seeking her pleasure as a child does, draining the cup of each new joy like a child; and he knew that he was no more to her than the agreeable companion of her pleasures. But such an association, such girlish friendship so freely given, must surely ripen into a warmer feeling. His pulses could not be so deeply stirred and hers give no responsive throb. There must be some sympathy, some answering emotion in a nature so intensely sensitive.

Cheered by such hopeful reflections, Mr. Turchill ate an excellent breakfast, while Daphne somewhat timorously tried an egg, and was agreeably surprised to find it tasted pretty much the same as if the cook had fried it; a little leathery, perhaps, but that was a detail.

‘I feel so relieved,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised if I had turned them into chickens. And now, if you have quite finished we’ll begin our rowing. I have a conviction that if I don’t learn to feather properly to-day I shall never accomplish it while I live.’

The boat was ready for them, moored to a steep flight of steps which Bink had hewn out of the bank after his working hours. He had found odd planks in the wood-house, and had contrived to face the steps with timber in a most respectable manner, rewarded by Daphne by sweet words and sweeter looks, and by such a shower of shillings that he had opened a post-office savings-bank book on the strength of her bounty, and felt himself on the road to fortune.

There was the boat in all the smartness of new varnished wood. Daphne had given up her idea of a Pompeian red dado to oblige the boat-builder. There were the oars and sculls, with Daphne’s monogram in dark blue and gold; and there, glittering in the sunlight, was the name she had chosen for her craft, in bright golden letters—Nero.

‘What a queer name to choose!’ said Edgar. ‘He was such an out-and-out beast, you know.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ retorted Daphne. ‘I read an article yesterday in an old volume of Cornhill, in which the writer demonstrates that he was rather a nice man. He didn’t poison Britannicus; he didn’t make away with his mamma; he didn’t set fire to Rome, though he did play the violin beautifully. He was a very accomplished young man, and the historians of his time were silly _gobe-mouches_, who jotted down every ridiculous scandal that was floating in society. I think that Taci——what’s his name ought to be ashamed of himself.’

‘Oh, Nero has been set on his legs, has he?’ said Edgar carelessly, as he took the rudder lines, while Daphne bent over her sculls, and began—rather too vehemently—to feather. ‘And I suppose Tiberius was a very meritorious monarch, and all those scandals about Capri were so many airy fictions? Well, it doesn’t make much difference to us, does it?—except that it will go hard with me by-and-by, when my boys come to learn the history of the future, to have the young scamps tell me that all I learnt at Rugby was bosh.’

‘At Rugby!’ cried Daphne, suddenly earnest. ‘You were at Rugby with my brother, weren’t you? Were you great friends?’

Edgar leant over the boat, concerned about some weeds that were possibly interfering with the rudder.

‘We didn’t see much of each other. He was ever so much younger than I, you know.’

‘Was he nice? Were people fond of him?’

‘Everybody was dreadfully sorry when he died of scarlet-fever, poor fellow!’ answered Edgar, without looking at her.

‘Yes, it was terrible, was it not? I can just remember him. Such a bright, handsome boy; full of life and spirits. He used to tease me a good deal, but that is the nature of boys. And then, when I was at Brighton, there came a letter to say that he was dead, and I had to wear black frocks for ever so long. Poor Loftus! How dearly I should have loved him if he had lived!’

‘Yes; it would have been nice for you to have a brother, would it not?’ said Edgar, still with a shade of embarrassment.

‘Nice! It would have been my salvation, to have someone of my own kindred, quite my brother. I love Madoline, with all my heart and soul; but she is only my half-sister. I always feel that there is a difference between us. She is my superior; she comes of a better stock. Nobody ever talks of my mother, or my mother’s family; but Lina’s parentage is in everybody’s mouth; she seems to be related—at least in heraldry—to everybody worth knowing in the county. But Loftus would have been the same clay that I am made of, don’t you know, neither better nor worse. Blood is thicker than water.’

‘That’s a morbid feeling of yours, Daphne.’

‘Is it? I’m afraid I have a few morbid feelings.’

‘Get rid of them. There never was a better sister than Madoline is to you.’

‘I know it. She is perfection; but that only makes her further away from me. I reverence her, I look up to her and admire her; but I can never feel on an equality with her.’

‘That shows your good sense. It is an advantage for you to have someone to look up to.’

‘Yes; but I should like someone on my own level as well.’

‘You’ve got me,’ said Edgar bluntly. ‘Can’t you make a brother of me for the nonce?’

‘For ever and always, if you like,’ replied Daphne. ‘I’m sure I’ve got the best of the bargain. I don’t believe any brother would get up at five o’clock to teach me to row.’

Edgar felt very sure that Loftus would not have done it; that short-lived youth having been the very essence of selfishness, and debased by a marked inclination towards juvenile profligacy.

‘Brothers are not the most self-sacrificing of human beings,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll find finer instances of devotion in an Irish or a Scottish foster-brother than in the Saxon blood-relation. But Madoline is a sister in a thousand. Take care of that willow,’ as the boat shot under the drooping foliage of an ancient pollard. ‘How bright and happy she looked last night!’

‘Yes; she had just received a long letter from Gerald, and he talks of coming home sooner than she expected him. He will give up his fishing in Norway, though I believe he had engaged an inland sea all to himself, and he will be home before the end of July. Isn’t it nice? I am dying with curiosity to see what he is like.’

‘Didn’t I describe him to you?’

‘In the vaguest way. You said I was sure to like him. Now I have an invincible conviction that I shall detest him; just because it is my duty to feel a sisterly affection for him.’

‘Take care that you keep within the line of duty, and that your affection doesn’t go beyond the sisterly limit,’ said Edgar, with a grim smile. ‘There is no fear of the other thing.’

‘What a savage look!’ cried Daphne laughingly. ‘How horridly jealous you must be of him!’

‘Hasn’t he robbed me of my first love?’ demanded Edgar; ‘and now——’

‘Don’t be so gloomy. Didn’t you tell me you had got over your disappointment, and that you meant to be a dear useful bachelor-uncle to Madoline’s children by-and-by?’

‘I don’t know about being always a bachelor,’ said Edgar doubtfully. ‘That would imply that I hadn’t got over my disappointment.’

‘That is what you said the other day. I am only quoting yourself against yourself. I like to think of you as a perpetual bachelor for Lina’s sake. It is a more poetical idea than the notion of your consoling yourself with somebody else.’

‘Yet a man does generally console himself. It is in human nature.’

‘Don’t say another word,’ cried Daphne. ‘You are positively hateful this morning—so low and material. I’m afraid it must be the consequence of eggs and bacon, such a vulgar unæsthetic breakfast—Bink’s idea. I shall give you bread and butter and strawberries to-morrow, if MacCloskie will let me have any strawberries.’

‘If you were to talk a little less and row a little more, I think we should get on faster,’ suggested Edgar, smiling at her.

They had got into a spot where a little green peninsula jutted out into the stream, and where the current was almost a whirlpool. The boat had been travelling in a circle for the last five minutes, while Daphne plied her sculls, unconscious of the fact. They were nearing Stratford; the low level meadows lay round them, the tall spire rose yonder, above the many-arched Gothic bridge built by good Sir Hugh Clopton before Shakespeare was born. William Shakespeare must have crossed it many and many a time, with the light foot of boyhood; a joyous spirit, finding ineffable delight in simplest things. And, again, after he had lived his life and had measured himself amidst the greatest minds of his age, in the greatest city of the world, and had toiled, and conquered independence and fame, and came back rich enough to buy the great house hard by the grammar-school, how often must he have lounged against the gray stone parapet, in the calm eventide, watching the light linger and fade upon the reedy river, bats and swallows skimming across the water, the grand old Gothic church embowered in trees, and the level meadows beyond!

They were in the very heart of Shakespeare’s country. Yonder, far away to their right, lay the meadow-path by which he walked to Shottery. Memories of him were interwoven with every feature in the landscape.

‘My father told me I was not to go beyond our own meadows,’ said Daphne, ‘but of course he meant when I was alone. It is quite different when you are with me.’

‘Naturally. I think I am capable of taking care of you.’

This kind of thing went on for another week of weather which at worst was showery. They breakfasted in the boat-house every morning, Daphne exercising all her ingenuity in the arrangement of the meal, and making rapid strides in the art of cookery.

It must be confessed that Mr. Turchill seemed to enjoy the breakfasts suggested by the vulgar-minded Bink, rather more than those which were direct emanations of Daphne’s delicate fancy. He liked broiled mackerel better than cream and raspberry jam. He preferred devilled kidneys to honeycomb and milk-rolls. But whatever Daphne set before him he ate with thankfulness. It was so sweet to spend his mornings in this bright joyous company. It was a grand thing to have so intelligent a pupil, for Daphne was becoming very skilful in the management of her boat. She was able to navigate her bark safely through the most difficult bits of the deep swift river. She could shoot the narrow arches of Stratford bridge in as good style as a professional waterman.

But when two young pure-minded people are enjoying themselves in this frank, easy-going fashion, there is generally some one of mature age near at hand to suggest evil, and to put a stop to their enjoyment. So it was in this case. The Rector’s wife heard of her niece’s watery meanderings and gipsy breakfasts, and took upon herself to interfere. Mr. MacCloskie, who had reluctantly furnished a dish of forced strawberries for the boat-house breakfast, happened to stroll over to Arden Rectory in the afternoon with a basket of the same fruit, as an offering from himself to Mrs. Ferrers—an inevitable half-crown tip to the head gardener, and dear at the price in the lady’s opinion. Naturally a man of MacCloskie’s consequence required refreshment after his walk; so Mrs. Todd entertained him in her snug little sanctum next the pantry, with a dish of strong tea and a crusty knob of home-baked bread, lavishly buttered. Whereupon, in the course of conversation, Mr. MacCloskie let fall that Miss Daphne was carrying on finely with Mr. Turchill, of Hawksyard, and that he supposed that would be a match some of these days. Pressed for details, he described the early breakfasts at the boat-house, the long mornings spent on the river, the afternoons at billiards, the tea-drinkings in the conservatory. All this Todd, who was an irrepressible gossip, retailed to her mistress next morning, when the bill of fare had been written, and the campaign of gluttony for the next twenty-four hours had been carefully mapped out.

Mrs. Ferrers heard with the air of profound indifference which she always assumed on such occasions.

‘MacCloskie is an incorrigible gossip,’ she said, ‘and you are almost as bad.’

But, directly she had dismissed Todd, the fair Rhoda went up to her dressing-room and arrayed herself for a rural walk. Life in a pastoral district, with a husband of few ideas, will now and then wax monotonous, and Rhoda was glad to have some little mental excitement—something which made it necessary for her to bestir herself, and which enabled her to be useful, after her manner, to her kith and kin.

‘I shall not speak to her father, yet,’ she said to herself. ‘He has strict ideas of propriety, and might be too severe. Madoline must remonstrate with her.’

She walked across the smiling fields, light of foot, buoyed up by the pleasing idea that she was performing a Christian duty, that her errand was in all things befitting her double position as near relation and pastor’s wife. She felt that if Fate had made her a man she would have been an excellent bishop. All the sterner duties of that high calling—visitations, remonstrances, suspensions—would have come easy to her.

She found Madoline in the morning-room, the French windows wide open, the balcony full of flowers, the tables and mantelpiece and cabinets all abloom with roses.

‘Sorry to interrupt your morning practice, dearest,’ said Mrs. Ferrers as Madoline rose from the piano. ‘You play those sweet classic bits so deliciously. Mendelssohn, is it not?’

‘No; Raff. How early you are, Aunt Rhoda!’

‘I have something very particular to say to you, Lina, so I came directly I had done with Todd.’

This kind of address from a woman of Rhoda’s type generally forbodes unpleasantness. Madoline looked alarmed.

‘There’s nothing wrong, I hope,’ she faltered.

‘Not absolutely—not intentionally wrong, I trust,’ said Mrs. Ferrers. ‘But it must be put a stop to immediately.’

Madoline turned pale. In the days that were gone Aunt Rhoda had always been a dreadful nuisance to the servants. She had been perpetually making unpleasant discoveries—peculations, dissipations, and carryings-on of divers kinds. Not unfrequently she had stumbled upon mares’-nests, and after making everybody uncomfortable for a week or two, had been constrained to confess herself mistaken. Her rule at South Hill had not been peace. And now Lina feared that, even outside the house, Aunt Rhoda had contrived to make one of her terrible discoveries. Someone had been giving away the milk or selling the corn, or stealing garden-stuff.

‘What is it, Aunt Rhoda?’

Mrs. Ferrers did not give a direct answer. Her cold gray eyes made the circuit of the room, and then she asked:

‘Where is Daphne?’

‘In her own room—lying down, I think, tired out with rowing.’

‘And where is Mr. Turchill?’

‘Gone home. He had some important business, I believe—a horse to look at.’

‘Oh, he does go home sometimes?’

‘How curiously you talk, Aunt Rhoda. Is there any harm in his coming here as often as he likes? He is our oldest friend. Papa treats him like a son.’

‘Oh, no harm, of course, if Vernon is satisfied. But I don’t wonder Daphne is tired, and is lying down at mid-day—a horribly lazy, unladylike habit, by the way. Are you aware that she is down at the boat-house before seven every morning?’

‘Certainly, aunt. It is much nicer for her to row at that early hour than later in the day. Edgar is teaching her; she is quite safe in his care.’

‘And do you know that there is a gipsy breakfast every morning in the boat-house?’

‘I have heard something about a tea-kettle, and ham and eggs. Daphne has an idea that she is learning to cook.’

‘And do you approve of all this?’

Madoline smiled at the question. ‘I like her to be happy. I think she wastes a good deal of time; that she is doing nothing to carry on her education; but idleness is only natural in a girl of her age, and she has been at home such a short time, and she is so fond of the river.’

‘Has it never occurred to you, Madoline, that there is some impropriety in these _tête-à-tête_ mornings with Edgar Turchill?’

‘Impropriety! Impropriety in Daphne being on friendly terms with Edgar—Edgar, who has been brought up with us almost as a brother!’

‘With you, perhaps; not with Daphne. She has spent most of her life away from South Hill. She is little more than a stranger to Mr. Turchill.’

‘She would be very much surprised if you were to tell her so, and so would Edgar. Why, he used always to make himself her playfellow in her holidays, before she went to Madame Tolmache.’

‘That was all very well while she was in short frocks. But she is now a woman, and people will talk about her.’

‘About Daphne, my innocent childlike sister, little more than a child in years, quite a child in gaiety and light-heartedness! How can such an idea enter your head, Aunt Rhoda? Surely the most hardened scandalmonger could not find anything to say against Daphne.’

‘My dear Madoline,’ began Mrs. Ferrers severely, ‘you are usually so sensible in all you do and say that I really wonder at the way you are talking this morning. There are certain rules of conduct, established time out of mind, for well-bred young women; and Daphne can no more violate those rules with impunity than anybody else can. It is not because she wears her hair down her back and her petticoats immodestly scanty that she is to go scot-free,’ added Aunt Rhoda in a little involuntary burst of malevolence.

She had not been fond of Daphne as a child; she liked her much less as a young woman. To a well-preserved woman of forty, who still affects to be young, there is apt to be something aggravating in the wild freshness and unconscious insolence of lovely seventeen.

‘Aunt Rhoda, I think you forget that Daphne is my sister—my very dear sister.’

‘Your half-sister, Madoline. I forget nothing. It is you who forget that there are reasons in Daphne’s antecedents why we should be most especially careful about her.’

‘It is unkind of you to speak of that, aunt,’ protested Madoline, blushing. ‘As to Edgar Turchill, he is my father’s favourite companion; he is devoted to all of us. There can be no possible harm in his being a kind of adopted brother to Daphne.’

‘He was an adopted brother to you three years ago, and we all know what came of it.’

‘Pshaw! That was a foolish fancy, and is all over and done with.’

‘The same thing may happen in Daphne’s case.’

‘If it should, would you be sorry? I am sure I should not. I know my father would approve.’

‘Oh, if Vernon is satisfied with the state of affairs, I can have nothing further to say,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers with dignity; ‘but if Daphne were my daughter—and Heaven forbid I should ever have such a responsibility as an overgrown girl of that temperament!—I would allow no boat-house breakfastings, no meanderings on the Avon. However, it is no business of mine,’ concluded Mrs. Ferrers with an injured air, having said all she had to say. ‘How is your water-lily counterpane getting on?’

‘Nearly finished,’ answered Madoline, delighted to change the conversation. ‘It will be ready for papa’s birthday.’

‘How is my brother, by-the-by?’

‘He has been complaining of rheumatic pains. I’m afraid we shall have to spend next winter abroad.’

‘What nonsense, Lina! It is mere hypochondria on Vernon’s part. He was always full of fancies. He is as well as I am.’

‘He does not think so himself, aunt; and he ought to know best.’

‘I am not sure of that. A hypochondriac may fancy he has hydrophobia, but he is not obliged to be right. You foster Vernon’s imaginary complaints by pretending to believe in them.’

Lina did not argue the point, perceiving very plainly that her aunt was out of temper. Nor did she press that lady to stay to luncheon, nor offer any polite impediment to her departure. But the interference of starched propriety had the usual effect. Lightly as Madoline had seemed to hold her aunt’s advice, she was too thorough a woman not to act upon it. She went up to Daphne’s room directly Mrs. Ferrers left the house. She stole softly in, so as not to disturb the girl’s slumber, and seated herself by the open window calmly to await her waking. Daphne’s room was one of the prettiest in the house. It had a wide window, overlooking the pastoral valley and winding Avon. It was neatly furnished with birchwood, and turquoise cretonne, and white and gold crockery, but it was sorely out of order. Daphne’s gowns of yesterday and the day before were flung on the sofa. Daphne’s hats of all the week round were strewed on tables and chairs. Her sunshade lay across the dressing-table among the brushes, and scent bottles, and flower-glasses, and pincushions, and trumpery. She had no maid of her own, and her sister’s maid, in whose articles of service it was to attend upon her, had renounced that duty as a task impossible of performance. No well-drilled maid could have anything to do—except when positively obliged—with such an untidy and unpunctual young lady. A young lady who would appoint to have her hair dressed and her gown laced at seven, and come running into the house breathless and panting at twenty minutes to eight; a young lady who made hay of her cuffs and collars whenever she was in a hurry, and whose drawer of ribbons was always being upheaved as if by an earthquake. Daphne, being remonstrated with and complained of, protested that she would infinitely rather wait upon herself than be worried.

‘You are all goodness, Lina dear, but half a maid is no maid. I would rather do without one altogether,’ she said.

The room was not absolutely ugly, even in its disorder. All the things that were scattered about were pretty things. There were a good many ornaments, such as are apt to be accumulated by young ladies with plenty of pocket-money, and very little common sense. Mock Venetian-glass flower-vases of every shape and colour; Japanese cups and saucers, and fans and screens; Swiss brackets; willow-pattern plates; a jumble of everything trumpery and fashionable; flowers everywhere, and the atmosphere sickly sweet with the odour of tuberose.

Daphne stirred in her sleep, faintly conscious of a new presence in the room, sighed, turned on her pillow, and presently sat up, flushed and towzled, in her indigo gown, just as she had come in from her boating excursion.

‘Have you had a nice nap, dear?’

‘Lovely. I was awfully tired. We rowed to Stratford Weir.’

‘And you are quite able to row now?’

‘Edgar says I scull as well as he does.’

‘Then, dearest, I think you ought to dispense with Edgar in future and keep to our own meadows, as papa said he wished you to do.’

‘Oh!’ said Daphne. ‘Is that a message from my father?’

‘No, dear. But I am sure it will be better for you to consider his wishes upon this point. He is very particular about being obeyed.’

‘Oh! very well, Lina. Of course if you wish it I will tell Edgar the course of lessons is concluded. He has been awfully good. It will be rather slow without him. But I was beginning to find the breakfasts a weight on my mind. It was so difficult to maintain variety—and Bink has such low ideas. Do you know that he actually suggested sausages—pork-sausages in June! And I could not make him comprehend the nauseousness of the notion.’

‘Then it is understood, darling, that you row by yourself in future. I know my father would prefer it.’

‘You prefer it, Lina; that is enough for me,’ answered Daphne in her coaxing way. ‘But I think I ought to give Edgar some little present for all his goodness to me. A smoking-cap, or a cigar-case, or an antimacassar for his mother. I could work it in crewels, don’t you know.’

‘You never finish anything, Daphne.’

‘Because the beginning is always so much nicer. But if I should break down in this, you would finish it, wouldn’t you, Lina?’

‘With pleasure, my pet.’

Edgar was told that evening that his services as a teacher of rowing would no longer be required. And though the fact was imparted to him with infinite sweetness, he felt as if half the sunshine was taken out of his life.