HE crossed on his way to the house a tall parlour maid who had just quitted it with a tray which a moment later she deposited on the table near her mistress. Tony Bream was accustomed to say that since Frederick the Great’s grenadiers there had never been anything like the queen-mother’s parlourmaids, who indeed on field-days might, in stature, uniform and precision of exercise, have affronted comparison with that formidable phalanx. They were at once more athletic and more reserved than Tony liked to see their sex, and he was always sure that the extreme length of their frocks was deter mined by that of their feet. The young woman, at any rate, who now presented herself, a young woman with a large nose and a straight back, stiff cap-streamers, stiffer petticoats and stiffest manners, was plainly the corporal of her squad. There was a murmur and a twitter all around her; but she rustled about the tea-table to a tune that quenched the voice of summer. It left undisturbed, however, for awhile, Mrs. Beever’s meditations; that lady was thoughtfully occupied in wrapping up Doctor Ramage’s doll. “ Do you know, Manning, what has become of Miss Armiger?” she at last inquired.

“She went, ma’am, near an hour ago, to the pastrycook’s.”

“To the pastrycook’s? ”

“She had heard you wonder, ma’am, she told me, that the young ladies’ birthday-cake hadn’t yet arrived.”

“And she thought she’d see about it? Uncom monly good of her!” Mrs. Beever exclaimed.

“Yes, ma’am, uncommonly good.”

“Has it arrived, then, now? ”

“Not yet, ma’am.”

“And Miss Armiger hasn’t returned? ”

“I think not, ma’am.”

Mrs. Beever considered again. “ Perhaps she’s waiting to bring it.”

Manning indulged in a proportionate pause. “Perhaps, ma’am in a fly. And when it comes, ma’am, shall I fetch it out? ”

“In a fly too? I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Beever, “that with such an incubation it will really require one.” After a moment she added: “ I’ll go in and look at it first.” And then, as her attendant was about to rustle away, she further detained her. “Mr. Bream hasn’t been over? ”

“Not yet, ma’am.”

Mrs. Beever consulted her watch. u Then he’s still at the Bank.”

“He must be indeed, ma’am.” Tony’s colleague appeared for a little to ponder this prompt concurrence; after which she said: “You haven’t seen Miss Jean? ”

Manning bethought herself. “ I believe, ma’am, Miss Jean is dressing.”

“Oh, in honour ” But Mrs. Beever’s idea dropped before she finished her sentence.

Manning ventured to take it up. “ In honour of her birthday, ma’am.”

“I see of course. And do you happen to have heard if that’s what also detains Miss EfHe — that she’s dressing in honour of hers? ”

Manning hesitated. “ I heard, ma’am, this morning that Miss Effie had a slight cold.”

Her mistress looked surprised. “ But not such as to keep her at home? ”

“They were taking extra care of her, ma’am so that she might be all right for coming.”

Mrs. Beever was not pleased. “ Extra care? Then why didn’t they send for the Doctor? ”

Again Manning hesitated. “They sent for Miss Jean, ma’am.”

“To come and look after her? ”

“They often do, ma’am, you know. This morn ing I took in the message.”

“And Miss Jean obeyed it? ”

“She was there an hour, ma’am.”

Mrs. Beever administered a more than approving pat to the final envelope of her doll. “She said nothing about it.”

Again Manning concurred. “Nothing, ma’am.” The word sounded six feet high, like the figure she presented. She waited a moment and then as if to close with as sharp a snap the last open door to the desirable, “ Mr. Paul, ma’am,” she observed, “ if you were wanting to know, is out in his boat on the river.”

Mrs. Beever pitched her parcel back to the bench. “Mr. Paul is never anywhere else! ”

“Never, ma’am,” said Manning inexorably. She turned the next instant to challenge the stranger who had come down from the house. “ A gentleman, ma’am,” she announced; and, retiring while Mrs. Beever rose to meet the visitor, drew, with the noise of a lawn-mower, a starched tail along the grass.

Dennis Vidal, with his hat off, showed his hostess a head over which not a year seemed to have passed. He had still his young, sharp, meagre look, and it came to her that the other time as well he had been dressed in double-breasted blue of a cut that made him sailorly. It was only on a longer view that she saw his special signs to be each a trifle intensified. He was browner, leaner, harder, finer; he even struck her as more wanting in height. These facts, however, didn’t prevent another fact from striking her still more: what was most distinct in his face was that he was really glad to take her by the hand. That had an instant effect on her: she could glow with pleasure, modest matron as she was, at such an intimation of her having, so many years before, in a few hours, made on a clever young man she liked an impression that could thus abide with him. In the quick light of it she liked him afresh; it was as if their friendship put down on the spot a firm foot that was the result of a single stride across the chasm of time. In this indeed, to her clear sense, there was even something more to pity him for: it was such a dreary little picture of his interval, such an implication of what it had lacked, that there had been so much room in it for an ugly old woman at Wilverley. She motioned him to sit down with her, but she immediately re marked that before she asked him a question she had an important fact to make known. She had delayed too long, while he waited there, to let him understand that Rose Armiger was at Eastmead. She instantly saw at this that he had come in complete ignorance. The range of alarm in his face was narrow, but he coloured, looking grave; and after a brief debate with himself he inquired as to Miss Armiger’s actual where abouts.

“She has gone out, but she may reappear at any moment,” said Mrs. Beever.

“And if she does, will she come out here? ”

“I’ve an impression she’ll change her dress first. That may take her a little time.”

“Then I’m free to sit with you ten minutes? ”

“As long as you like, dear Mr. Vidal. It’s for you to choose whether you’ll avoid her.”

“I dislike dodging I dislike hiding,” Dennis returned; “ but I daresay that if I had known where she was I wouldn’t have come.”

“I feel hatefully rude but you took a leap in the dark. The absurd part of it,” Mrs. Beever went on,

“is that you’ve stumbled on her very first visit to me.”

The young man showed a surprise which gave her the measure of his need of illumination. “ For these four years? ”

“For these four years. It’s the only time she has been at Eastmead.”

Dennis hesitated. “ And how often has she been at the other house? ”

Mrs. Beever smiled. “ Not even once.” Then as her smile broadened to a small, dry laugh, “ I can quite say that for her!” she declared.

Dennis looked at her hard. “To your certain knowledge? ”

“To my certain and absolute knowledge.” This mutual candour continued, and presently she said: “But you where do you come from.? ”

“From far away I’ve been out of England. After my visit here I went back to my post.”

“And now you’ve returned with your fortune?”

He gave her a smile from which the friendliness took something of the bitter quality. “ Call it my misfortune!” There was nothing in this to deprive Mrs. Beever of the pleasant play of a professional sense that he had probably gathered such an inde pendence as would have made him welcome at the Bank. On the other hand she caught the note of a tired grimness in the way he added: “ I’ve come back with that. It sticks to me! ”

For a minute she spared him. “You want her as much as ever? ”

His eyes confessed to a full and indeed to a sore acceptance of that expression of the degree. “I want her as much as ever. It’s my constitu tional obstinacy! ”

“Which her treatment of you has done nothing to break down? ”

“To break down? It has done everything in life to build it up.”

“In spite of the particular circumstance? ”

At this point even Mrs. Beever’s directness failed.

That of her visitor, however, was equal to the occasion. “ The particular circumstance of her chucking me because of the sudden glimpse given her, by Mrs. Bream’s danger, of the possibility of a far better match?” He gave a laugh drier than her own had just been, the ring of an irony from which long, hard thought had pressed all the savour. “That ‘ particular circumstance,’ dear madam, is every bit that’s the matter with me! ”

“You regard it with extraordinary coolness, but I presumed to allude to it ”

“Because,” Dennis broke in with lucidity, “ I myself made no bones of doing so on the only other occasion on which we’ve met? ”

“The fact that we both equally saw, that we both equally judged,” said Mrs. Beever, “was on that occasion really the only thing that had time to pass between us. It’s a tie, but it’s a slender one, and I’m all the more flattered that it should have had any force to make you care to see me again.”

“It never ceased to be my purpose to see you, if you would............