"Oh, I shan't be a brute beast to Seymour," said Nadine. "Besides, I don't suppose you were. You didn't know: wasn't that all?"

Dodo wiped the mist from her eyes.

"No, that wasn't nearly all. But be tender with it, and pray, oh, my dear, pray, that you may catch that--that 'n.o.ble fever.' Who calls it that? It is so true. And Hughie? I never saw him last night."

Nadine made a little gesture of despair.

"Ah, dear Hughie," she said. "That is not very happy. That is so largely why I wanted to marry Seymour quickly, in January instead of later, so that it may be done, and Hughie will not fret any more. I hate seeing him suffer, and I can't marry him. It would not be fair: it would be cheating him, as I told him before."

"But you are not cheating Seymour?" asked Dodo.

"Not in the same way. He is not simple, like Hugh. Hugh has only one thought: Seymour has plenty of others. He has such a mind: it is subtle and swift like a woman's. Hughie has the mind of a great retriever dog, and the eyes of one. There is all the difference in the world between them. Seymour knows what he is in for, and still wants it. Hugh thinks he knows, but he doesn't. I understand Hugh so well: I know I am right.

And I would have given anything to be able to be in love with him. It was a pity!"

There was something here that Dodo had not known and there was a dangerous sound about it.

"Do you mean you wish you were in love with him?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, Mama, but I'm not. I used to practice trying to be for months and months, just as I am practising for Seymour now. La, la, what a world!"

Nadine paused a moment.

"Of course I've quite stopped practising being in love with Hugh since I was engaged to Seymour," she said with an air of the most candid virtue.

"That _would_ be cheating."

Nadine got up looking like a tall white lily.

"Seymour is so good for me," she said. "He doesn't think much of my brain, you know, and I used to think a good deal of it. He doesn't say I'm stupid, but he hasn't got the smallest respect for my mind. I am not sure whether he is right, but I expect seeing so much of Hugh made me think I was clever. I wonder if being in love makes people stupid. He himself seems to me to be not quite so subtle as he was, and perhaps it's my fault. What do you think, Mama?"

CHAPTER IX

It was the morning after Christmas Day, and Dodo and Jack had just driven off from Meering on their way to Winston, where a shooting-party was to a.s.semble that day, leaving behind them a party that regretted their departure, but did not mean to repine. Edith Arbuthnot had promised to arrive two days before, to take over from Dodo the duty of chaperone, but she had not yet come, nor had anything whatever been heard of her.

"Which shows," said Berts lucidly, "that nothing unpleasant can have happened to mother, or we should have heard."

Until she came Nadine had very kindly consented to act as regent, and in that capacity she appeared in the hall a little while after Dodo had gone, with a large red contadina umbrella, a book or two, and an expressed determination to sit out on the hillside till lunch-time.

"It is boxing-day, I know," she said, "but it is too warm to box, even if I knew how. The English climate has gone quite mad, and I have told my maid to put my fur coat in a box with those little white b.a.l.l.s until May. Now I suppose you are all going to play the foolish game with those other little white b.a.l.l.s till lunch."

Seymour was seated in the window-sill, st.i.tching busily at a piece of embroidery which Antoinette had started for him.

"I am going to do nothing of the sort," he said. "It is much too fine a day to do anything so limited as to play golf. Besides there is no one here fit to play with. Nadine, will you be very kind and ring for my maid? I am getting in a muddle."

Berts, who was sitting near him, got up, looking rather ill. Also he resented being told he was not fit to play with.

"May I have my perambulator, please, Nadine?" he asked.

Seymour grinned.

"Berts, you are easier to get a rise out of than any one I ever saw," he remarked. "It is hardly worth while fishing for you, for you are always on the feed. And if you attempt to rag, I shall p.r.i.c.k you with my needle."

Nadine lingered a little after the others had gone, and as soon as they were alone Seymour put down his embroidery.

"May I come and sit on the hillside with you?" he asked. "Or is the--the box-seat already engaged?"

"Hugh suggested it," she said. "I was going out with him."

Seymour picked up his work again.

"It seems to me I am behaving rather nicely," he said. "At the same time I'm not sure that I am not behaving rather anemically. I haven't seen you much since I came down here. And after all I didn't come down here to see Esther."

Nadine frowned, and laid her hand on his arm. But she did not do it quite instinctively. It was clear she thought it would be appropriate.

Certainly that was quite clear to Seymour.

"Take that hand away," he said. "You only put it there because it was suitable. You didn't want to touch me."

Nadine removed her hand, as if his coat-sleeve was red-hot.

"You are rather a brute," she said.

"No, I am not, unless it is brutal to tell you what you know already. I repeat that I am behaving rather nicely."

It was owing to him to do him justice.

"I know you are," she said, "you are behaving very nicely indeed. But it is only for a short time, Seymour. I don't mean that you won't always behave nicely, but that there are only a limited number of days on which this particular mode of niceness will be required of you, or be even possible. Hugh is going away next week; after that you and I will be Darby and Joan before he sees me again. You are all behaving nicely: he is too. He just wanted one week more of the old days, when we didn't think, but only babbled and chattered. I can't say that he is reviving them with very conspicuous success: he doesn't babble much, and I am sure he thinks furiously all the time. But he wanted the opportunity: it wasn't much to give him."

"Especially since I pay," said Seymour quickly.

He saw the blood leap to Nadine's face.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I oughtn't to have said that, though it is quite true. But I pay gladly: you must believe that also. And I'm glad Hugh is behaving nicely, that he doesn't indulge in--in embarra.s.sing reflections. Also, when does he go away?"

"Tuesday, I think."

"Morning?" asked Seymour hopefully.

Nadine laughed: he had done that cleverly, making a parody and a farce out of that which a moment before had been quite serious.

"You deserve it should be," she said.

"Then it is sure to be in the afternoon. Now I've finished being spit-fire--I want to ask you something. You haven't been up to your usual form of futile and clannish conversation. You have been rather plaintive and windy--"

"Windy?" asked Nadine.