"My name," said Antony respectfully, "is Michael Field."

The d.u.c.h.essa gave a little shaky laugh.

"Well, Michael Field," she said. "I was not very kind that day I met you on the moorland."

Antony kept his eyes fixed on his plate.

"There was no reason that you should be kind," he replied quietly.

"There was," flashed the d.u.c.h.essa.

"I think not," replied Antony, calmly. "Ladies in your position are under no obligation to be kind to servants, except to those of their own household. Even then, it is more or less of a condescension on their part."

"You were not always a servant," said the d.u.c.h.essa.

There was the fraction of a pause.

"I did not happen to be actually in a situation when I was on the _Fort Salisbury_, if that is what you mean, Madam," returned Antony.

"I mean more than that," retorted the d.u.c.h.essa. "I mean that by your up-bringing you are not a servant."

Antony laughed shortly.

"I happen to have had a better education than falls to the lot of most men who have been in the positions I have been in, and who are in positions like my present one. But most a.s.suredly I am a servant."

"What positions have you been in?" demanded the d.u.c.h.essa.

A very faint smile showed itself on Antony's face.

"I have been a sort of miner's boy," he replied slowly. "I have been a farm hand, mainly used for cleaning out pigsties, and that kind of work.

I have been servant in a gambling saloon; odd man on a cattle boat. I have worked on a farm again. And now I am an under-gardener. Very a.s.suredly I have been, and am, a servant."

The d.u.c.h.essa's brows wrinkled. "Yet you speak like a gentleman, and--and you wore dress clothes as if you were used to them."

Again a faint smile showed itself on Antony's face.

"I told you I happen to have had a decent education in my youth. Also, I would suggest, that even butlers and waiters wear dress clothes as if they were used to them."

Once more there was a silence. A rather long silence this time. It was broken by the d.u.c.h.essa's voice.

"Some months ago," she said, "I offered my friendship to Antony Gray; I now offer that same friendship to Michael Field."

Antony gave a little laugh. There was an odd gleam in his eyes.

"Michael Field regrets that he must decline the honour."

The d.u.c.h.essa's face went dead white.

Antony got to his feet.

"Please don't misunderstand me," he said. "I fully appreciate the honour you have done me, but--" he shrugged his shoulders--"it is quite impossible to accept it. It--you must see that for yourself--would be a rather ridiculous situation. The d.u.c.h.essa di Donatello and a friendship with an under-gardener! I don't fancy either of us would care to be made a mock of, even by the extremely small world in which we happen to live."

He stopped.

The d.u.c.h.essa rose too. Her eyes were steely.

"Thank you for reminding me," she said. "In a moment of absurd impulsiveness I had overlooked that fact. Also, thank you for--for your hospitality."

She moved to the door without looking at him. Antony was before her, and had it open. He followed her down the path and unfastened the wicket gate. She pa.s.sed through it without turning her head, and walked rather deliberately down the lane.

Antony went back into the cottage. For a moment he stood looking at the table, his throat contracted. Then slowly, and with oddly unseeing eyes, he began clearing away the debris of the meal.

CHAPTER XXVII

LETTERS AND MRS. ARBUTHNOT

Trix was sitting in a summer-house in the garden of an hotel at Llandrindod Wells. She was reading a letter, a not altogether satisfactory letter to judge by the wrinkling of her brows, and the gravity of her eyes.

The letter was from the d.u.c.h.essa di Donatello, and ran as follows:

"My Dear Trix:

"I am glad you had a comfortable journey, and that Mrs. Arbuthnot had not been pining for you too deeply. It is a pity her letters gave you the impression that she was feeling your absence so acutely. Possibly it is always wiser to subtract at least half of the impression conveyed in both written and spoken words. Please understand that I am speaking in generalities when I say that we are exceedingly apt to exaggerate our own importance to others, and their importance to us.

"Talking of exaggeration, will you forget our conversation on your last evening here? I exaggerated my own trouble and its cause. Rather foolishly I let your remarks influence me, and sought an explanation, or rather, attempted to ignore appearances, and return to the old footing.

The result being that not only did I find that there was no explanation to be given, but that I got rather badly snubbed. As you, of course, will know who administered the snub, you can understand that it was peculiarly unpleasant. I had endeavoured to ignore the fact that he was my social inferior, but he reminded me of it in a way it was impossible to overlook, and showed me that he deeply resented what he evidently looked upon as a somewhat impertinent condescension on my part.

"The theories, my dear Trix, which you set forth in the moonlight under the lime trees, simply won't hold water. For your own sake I advise you to abandon them forthwith. Blood will always tell; and sooner or later, if we attempt intimacy with those not of our own station in life, we shall get a glimpse of the hairy hoof. I know the theories sound all right, and quite beautifully Christian--as set forth in the moonlight,--but they don't work in this twentieth century, as I have found to my cost. You had better make up your mind to that fact before you, too, get a slap in the face. I a.s.sure you you don't feel like turning the other cheek. However, that will do. But as it was mainly through following out your theories and advice that I found my pride not only in the mud, but rubbed rather heavily in it, I thought you might as well have a word of warning. Please now consider the matter closed, and never make the smallest reference to that rather idiotic conversation.

"Doctor Hilary was over here again yesterday. He enquired after you, and asked to be very kindly remembered to you. I should like Doctor Hilary to attend me in any illness. He gives one such a feeling of strength and reliance. There's absolutely no humbug about him.

"Much love, my dear Trix, "Yours affectionately, "Pia Di Donatello."

Trix read the letter through very carefully, and then dropped it on her lap.

"It wasn't Doctor Hilary!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "So who on earth was it?"

She sat gazing through the opening of the summer-house towards the garden. It was the oddest _puzzle_ she had ever encountered. Who on earth could it have been? And why--since it wasn't Doctor Hilary--had Pia jumped to the conclusion that she--Trix--knew who it was?

It wasn't Mr. Danver, that was very certain. "Social inferior" put that fact out of the question. But then, what social inferior had been mixed up in the business? Or--Trix's brain leapt from point to point--had Pia's trouble nothing whatever to do with the mad business at the Hall? Had she and Pia simply been playing a quite amazing game of cross-purposes that evening? It would seem that must have been the case. Yet the recognition of that fact didn't bring her in the smallest degree nearer the solution of the riddle. Again, who on earth was it? What social inferior was there, could there possibly be, at Woodleigh, to cause Pia a moment's trouble? Every preconceived notion on Trix's part, including the colour of the soap-bubble, vanished into thin air, and left her contemplating an inexplicable mystery.

Whatever it was, it had affected Pia pretty deeply. It was absurd for her to say the incident was closed. Externally it might be, in the matter of not referring to it again. Interiorly it had left a wound, and one which was very far from being easily healed, to judge by Pia's letter. It had not been written by Pia at all, but by a very bitter woman, who had merely a superficial likeness to Pia. That fact, and that fact alone, caused Trix to imagine that she had been right when she told Tibby--if not in so many words, at least virtually speaking--that love had come into Pia's life. Love embittered alone could have inflicted the wound she felt Pia to be enduring. And yet the wording of her letter would appear to put that surmise out of the question. Truly it was an insolvable riddle.

Once more she re-read the letter, but it didn't help her in the smallest degree. There was only one small ounce of comfort in it. It wasn't Doctor Hilary who had caused the wound. Pia had merely tried to pick a quarrel with him, as she had frequently tried to pick one with herself and Tibby, because she was unhappy. If only Trix knew what had caused the unhappiness. And Pia thought she did know. If she wrote and told her now that she hadn't the smallest conception of what she was talking about, it would in all probability rouse conjectures in Pia's mind as to what Trix _had_ thought. That, having in view her promise, had certainly better be avoided.