"But you're not at all," Pauline declared. "And if you take my advice you won't think you're dull. You'll make Margaret marry you. Really I'm sure that what she would like best is to be made to do something. You see, she's a darling but she is just a very tiny little bit spoilt. You mustn't be so patient with her. But, Richard dear, I know she loves you, because she practically told Guy that she did."

"Guy?" he echoed looking rather indignant.

"Well, you must understand how sweet Margaret was to him about me. She was so sympathetic, and really she practically brought about our engagement. Oh, I do love her so, Richard, and I do want her to be happy and I do know so dreadfully well that you are the very person to make her happy."

"Pauline, you are a pink brick," he avowed.

And scarcely another word did he say for the rest of their walk.

Pauline went to Margaret's room that night and, after fidgeting all the while her sister was undressing, suddenly plunged down beside her bed and caught hold of her hand.

"Margaret, you're not to snub me, because I absolutely must speak. I must beg you not to keep Richard waiting any longer. Do, my darling, darling Margaret, do be kind to him and not so cold. He simply adores you, and ... why, Margaret, you're crying ... oh, let me kiss you, my Margaret, because you were so wonderful about Guy, and I've been a beast to you and you must, you must be happy."

"If I could only love him as you love Guy," Margaret sighed between her tears.

"You do really ... at least perhaps not quite as much. Oh, Margaret, don't be angry with me if I whisper something to you: think how much you would love him if you and he had ... Margaret, you know what I mean."

Pauline blew out the candle and rushed from the dark room; and lying awake in her own bed, she fancied among the flowers of the Rectory such fairy children for Margaret and herself, such fairy children dancing by the margin of the river.

_May_

On the morning before Pauline's birthday Guy received a letter from Michael Fane announcing abruptly his engagement and adding that on account of worldly opposition he had been persuaded into a postponement of his marriage for two months. Guy was rather ironically amused by the serious manner in which Michael took so brief a delay, and he could not help thinking how unreasonably impatient of trifles people with ample private means often showed themselves. Michael wrote that he would like to spend some of his probation at Plashers Mead and alluded to the 'luck' of his friend in being so near his Pauline.

Guy wrote a letter of congratulation, and then he put Michael's news out of his mind in order to examine the two complete sets of the proofs of his poems which had also arrived that morning. He was engaged in the task of making rather a clumsy binding for them out of a piece of stained vellum, when Richard Ford came round to Plashers Mead. Guy welcomed him gladly, for besides the personal attraction he felt toward this lean and silent engineer he perceived in the likelihood of Richard's speedy marriage an earnest of his own. Somehow that marriage was going to break the spell of inactivity, to which at the Rectory all seemed to be subject and from which Guy was determined to keep Richard free, even if it were necessary to shake him as continuously as tired wanderers in the snow are shaken out of a dangerous sleep.

"I came round to consult with you about my present to Pauline to-morrow," said Richard very solemnly. "I've brought round one or two little things, so that you could give me your advice."

"Why, of course I will," said Guy.

"They're downstairs in the hall. I had some difficulty in explaining to your housekeeper that I wasn't a pedlar."

In the hall was stacked a pile completely representative of the bazaar: half-a-dozen shawls, the model of a temple, a carved table, some inlaid stools, every sort of typical oriental gewgaw, in fact an agglomeration that seemed to invite the smell of cheap incense for its effective display.

"G.o.dbold drove them over," Richard explained as he saw Guy's astonishment. "Now look here, what's the best present for Pauline? You see I'm not at all an artistic sort of chap, and I don't want to hoick forward something that's going to be more of a nuisance than anything else."

"It's really awfully difficult to choose," said Guy rather ambiguously.

Then he discovered a simple ivory paper-knife which he declared was just the thing, having the happy thought that he would not cut the set of proofs he was binding for Pauline, so that to-morrow Richard could have the pleasure of beholding his gift put to immediate use.

"You've chosen the smallest thing of the lot," said the disappointed donor. "You don't think a shawl as well?" he asked, holding up yards of gaudy material.

"Well, candidly I think Pauline's too fair for that colour scheme, don't you?"

"All right, the paper-knife. You don't mind if I leave these things here till G.o.dbold can fetch them away, and ... er.... I wish you'd choose something for yourself. I've always taken a kind of interest in this house, don't you know, and I've often thought about it in India."

"I'd like a gong," said Guy at once, and Richard was obviously gratified by his quick choice, and still farther gratified when Guy suggested they should sound it immediately outside the kitchen-door. Solemnly Richard held it up in the pa.s.sage, while Guy crashed forth a glorious clamour, at the summons of which Miss Peasey came rushing out.

"Good gracious," she gasped. "I thought that dog Bob had jumped through the window."

"This is a present for us from India," Guy shouted.

"Oh, that's extremely handsome, isn't it? Well now, I shall expect you to be punctual in future for your meals. Dear me, yes, quite a variety, I'm sure, after that measley bell."

The gong was given a prominent position in the bare hall, and Guy invited Richard up to his own room. After the question of the presents had been solved Richard was shy and silent again, and Guy found it very hard to make conversation. Several times his visitor seemed on the point of getting something off his mind, but when he was given an opportunity for speech, he never accepted it. Desperate for a topic Guy showed him the proofs of the poems and explained that he was binding them roughly as his present to Pauline to-morrow.

"That's something I can't understand," said Richard intensely. "Writing!

It beats me!"

"Bridges would beat me," said Guy.

Richard looked quite cheerful at this notion and under the influence of the encouragement he had received seemed at last on the point of getting out what he wanted to say, but he could manage nothing more confidential than a tug at his bristled fair moustache.

"When are you and Margaret going to be married?" Guy asked abruptly, for of course he had guessed that it was Margaret's name which was continually on the tip of his tongue.

"By Jove, there you are, I'm rather stumped," said Richard gloomily.

"You see the thing is ... well ... I suppose you know that when I started off to India last June year, Margaret and I were sort of engaged ... at least I was certainly engaged to her, only she hadn't absolutely made up her mind about me ... and of course that's just what you'd expect would happen to a chap like me ... dash it all, Hazlewood, I'm afraid to ask her again!"

"I don't think you need be," said Guy. "Of course we haven't discussed you, except very indirectly," he hastily added, "but I'm positive that Margaret is only waiting for you to ask her to marry her on some definite day: on some definite day, Ford, that's the great thing to remember."

"You mean I ought to say 'Margaret, will you marry me on the twelfth of August, or the first of September?' That's your notion, is it?"

Guy nodded.

"By gad, I'll ask her to-day," said Richard.

"And you'll be engaged to-morrow," Guy prophesied.

"When are you and Pauline going to be married?"

Guy looked up quickly to see if the solid Richard were laughing at him, but there was nothing in those steel-blue eyes except the most benevolent enquiry.

"That's the question," said Guy. "Writing is not quite such a certainty as bridge-building."

"You mean there's the difficulty of money? By Jove, that's bad luck, isn't it? Still, you know, I expect that having the good fortune to have Pauline in love with you ... well, I expect, you've got to expect a bit of difficulty somewhere, you know. You know, Pauline was...." he stopped and blinked at the window.

"Pauline's awfully fond of you," Guy said encouragingly.

"Hazlewood, that kid's been ... well, I can't express myself, you know, but I'd ... well, I really can't talk about her."

"I understand though," said Guy. "Look here, you'll stay and have lunch with me, and then we can go across to the Rectory afterwards."

Emotional subjects were tacitly put on one side to talk of the birds and b.u.t.terflies that one might expect to find round Wychford, of Miss Verney and G.o.dbold and other local characters, or of the prospects of the cricket team that year. After lunch Guy put the unbound set of proofs in his pocket and, launching the canoe, they floated down to the Rectory paddock. Mrs. Grey and the girls were all in the garden picking purple tulips, and Guy taking Pauline aside told her on what momentous quest Richard was come, suggesting that he should occupy the Rector's attention, while Pauline lured away her mother and Monica.

The Rector was sitting in the library hard at work, rubbing the fluff from the anemone seeds with sand.