After all, he thought, Mrs. Lakeman would suit him much better. He liked her adaptability of manner, her quick interest in his affairs. They had only known each other a year, but she had become his most intimate friend, his chum and companion; her society stimulated him; he wanted it more and more. Why shouldn't he have it altogether? Only the girl stood in the way; but probably she would marry; she had a curious fascination for some people, and she had money.

"Is Carringford coming?" he asked. "I thought you invited him."

"He dines and sleeps here to-morrow with an old friend--they are staying at Frencham together. I didn't want him here all the time," she said, significantly. "He raved quite enough about Gerald Vincent's girl those two days in town."

"I thought Stringer found out there was a 'young bounder' in the way?"

"Awfully lucky, wasn't it?" Mrs. Lakeman said, triumphantly, and off her guard for a moment. "But Tom came afterwards and saw him, too--and was quite choked off. It's extraordinary how completely the Vincents have gone smash."

But Farley took no interest in the Vincents. "Carringford hangs about Lena far too much unless something is coming of it," he said. "I should tell him so if I were you."

"He's coming to us in Scotland on the tenth. They'll have opportunities there," she answered, carelessly. "Let us go and look for her."

Lena meanwhile was sitting on a grave in the churchyard, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, looking out towards the Surrey hills, and she, too, was thinking of Tom Carringford and Margaret. She had been uneasy from the moment they had met each other on the embankment. She had seen Margaret's beauty and Tom's recognition of it, and they were something like each other--well-grown and healthy, a boy and girl that matched. She was not violently in love with Tom herself, but she simply couldn't bear that he should escape her, and on one pretext or another she brought him perpetually to her side. It was easy enough, for they had known each other since they were born, and Mrs. Lakeman had helped him with the house in Stratton Street when he was left alone in it.

Since his father's death and his sister's marriage she had taken the place of a near relation. He knew that Lena liked him, but it never occurred to him that her feeling was anything more--she always squirmed and looked into people's eyes and called them "dear"; if it had occurred to him he would probably have proposed on the spot, for there was no particular reason why he should not marry her, except that she was a little too clinging, and too fond of darkened rooms and limp clothes. He liked fresh air and a straightforwardness he could understand: there were many praiseworthy elementary qualities in Tom Carringford.

"He'll be quite happy with us in Scotland," Lena said to herself. "We'll sit by the streams or walk in the woods all day; he'll feel that we belong to each other and tell me he loves me"--for she was cloying even in her secret thoughts--"I think we must be married this autumn, then mother will be free. I wonder if mother will marry Dawson Farley." Lena was sharp enough, and was quite aware of the actor's vague intentions, little as he imagined it. She looked up at the wood--the crown--in the near distance, and then at the fields that led to the farm. That must be Margaret's wood, she thought, for Tom, who was frankness itself, had told the Lakemans of his visit to Chidhurst and his walk with Margaret.

Lena would have gone across the fields to the farm, but Mrs. Lakeman, who always had an eye for effect, would not hear of it.

"We will pay Mrs. Gerald Vincent a formal visit," she said, "in our best clothes and new gloves, and drive up to the door properly."

They had hired an open fly for the two days they were going to stay.

Nothing could make it imposing--it was just a ramshackle landau, and that was all, and the driver was the ordinary country flyman. It happened--though this had nothing to do with the Lakemans--that he was the same man, grown old, who twenty years ago had taken the elder Bartons to Woodside Farm when they went to expostulate with the widow concerning her second marriage. He thought of it to-day as he went down the green lane and in at the farm gates, for afterwards he had come to know with what their errand had been concerned.

Mrs. Lakeman, with Lena beside her, sat on the front seat, Dawson Farley facing them. "I never believe in treating these people carelessly," she remarked, as she fidgeted with her lace handkerchief--it was scented with violets--and held back her lace parasol as they drove in at the gates. Then she was almost startled. "What a lovely place!" she exclaimed. "Look at that porch, and those old windows. Gerald's not such a fool, after all! And a Dutch garden, too--why, I could live and die here myself!"

"I don't think so," Mr. Farley said, cynically.

"It's just what I thought it would be," Lena cooed. "I felt sure that Margaret lived in the midst of flowers."

They had stopped by the porch. The front door was open, but not a soul was visible.

"You must get down and ring the bell, Dawson," Mrs. Lakeman said, a little puzzled, as if she had expected the inhabitants of the house to run out and greet her. Then suddenly Towsey appeared. Margaret's hint had evidently taken effect, for she wore the black dress that she usually kept for Sundays, and a white ap.r.o.n that met behind her generous waist. Above the porch, from the window seat of her own room, Margaret, listening and watching, heard Mrs. Lakeman ask, in a clear voice that always seemed to have a note of derision in it: "Is Mrs. Gerald Vincent at home?"

"You are to come in," said Towsey, brusquely.

Mrs. Lakeman trailed into the living-room, followed by Lena and Mr.

Farley. She looked at the great fireplace piled with logs and bracken, at the old-fashioned chair on either side, at the oak table in the middle, and the chest against the wall, then back at the porch and the glorious view beyond it. Within, all was dim and cool and still; without, summer was at its highest and nature holding carnival.

Impressionable and quick to succ.u.mb to influences, she was charmed. "I call this the perfection of peace and simplicity," she exclaimed, as they stood in a group waiting.

A door on the left opened, a tall figure appeared and hesitated. Mrs.

Lakeman went forward with emotion, just as she had done to Gerald, but there was a shade of fine patronage in her manner this time. "It must be Mrs. Vincent--dear Gerald's wife," she said.

Mrs. Vincent looked at her visitor with calm wonderment.

"Yes," she said, simply. "I suppose you are a friend of his? Margaret thought you might come."

"I am Hilda Lakeman. You have heard of me, of course." Mrs. Lakeman's lips twisted with her odd smile. "You can imagine that I wanted to see you. I made a point of coming at once. We are staying at Sir George Stringer's till Monday."

"Perhaps you will come in," Mrs. Vincent said, a little awkwardly. Mrs.

Lakeman followed her into the best parlor, and looked round it with surprise. The room was perfect in its way. She had pictured something more comfortless.

"Dear Gerald's books," she said in a low tone to herself, glancing up at the well-filled shelves--"and his writing-table and reading-chair,"

she added, with a thrill. "The piano, I suppose, is Margaret's?" she asked, with an air of knowing how to place and value everything; for on a closer inspection she had decided that, after all, Mrs. Vincent was the simple farmer woman she had imagined. She was tall, and in the distance had an air of distinction, it was true; but Mrs. Lakeman felt it to be a spurious one--a chance gift of squandering nature. Her eyes and mouth were still beautiful, but her hair was gray, her throat was brown and drawn, her shoulders were a little bent. "She is quite an old woman," Mrs. Lakeman thought, triumphantly, as she walked across the room, listening to the rustling of her own dress, and noting the stuff one clumsily made--such as a housekeeper might have worn--in which Mrs.

Vincent stood waiting to see what her visitors would do next. "I wonder what she thinks of her prospect of being Lady Eastleigh?" Mrs. Lakeman thought, and then, with courteous but extreme formality, and the swift change of manner that was peculiar to her, she said: "This is my daughter, Mrs. Vincent--she has been looking forward to seeing you; and I have ventured to bring our old friend, Mr. Dawson Farley. I am sure it needs no excuse to present so famous a person to you--"

She stopped, for Hannah had entered and stood, half humbly, half defiantly, by the door. Hannah had dressed herself in her best, but the blue alpaca frock and the black alpaca ap.r.o.n and the white muslin tie round her neck only added to her uneasiness. Her hair was pulled well back, and two horn hair-pins showed in the scanty knot into which it was gathered at the top.

"That's Hannah," Mrs. Vincent explained, "my daughter by my first husband."

"How do you do?" Mrs. Lakeman said, with an odd smile, and looked at her insolently. "We are delighted to see you."

"How do you do?" Hannah answered, grimly. "Margaret thought you'd be coming. Won't you sit down?" She indicated seats to the visitors with an air of inferiority, and a consciousness of it, that was highly satisfactory to Mrs. Lakeman, whose dramatic instincts were fast coming into play.

"Miss--let me see--it was Miss Barton, I think? This is my daughter Lena, and this is Mr. Farley." Her manner was almost derisive as she presented them. "Ah! there is our Margaret. My dear!" and she folded Margaret in her arms, "I told you we should come. You knew we should, didn't you? It's such a wonderful thing," she went on, turning to Mrs.

Vincent, "to see Gerald's child."

"She's a fine, tall girl," Mrs. Vincent answered, looking at Margaret with pride.

"We've come to see you in your home, you little thing," Lena whispered, and pulled Margaret gently towards her.

"It's very kind of you," Margaret answered, repelled immediately. "But if I'm a fine, tall girl I can't be very little, can I?"

"You are very sweet," Lena whispered again, and stroked her shoulder.

"You remember Mr. Farley, don't you, dear?"

"Oh yes," Margaret said, shaking hands with him.

"He is staying with us till Monday morning," Mrs. Lakeman explained.

"Then we are all going back together, very early, indeed, in order to catch the Scotch express from Euston."

"It's not a long stay," Mrs. Vincent said, with the restraint in her manner that was always impressive. "The place is worth a longer one. You will come to think so."

"I dare say, but we must start for Scotland on Monday, and, as I never can travel at night, we must leave here in the morning and go up to town by the eight o'clock train in order to catch the day express. Tom Carringford is coming over to-morrow afternoon"--and she looked up at Margaret with a smile--"to dine and sleep. He is at Frencham now, dear boy; but he said he must come and spend to-morrow evening with us and go up and see us off in the morning." She wished Margaret to understand distinctly that Tom belonged to them.

"Is he going to Scotland, too?" Margaret asked, rather lamely, for lack of something else to say.

"Not with us. He is so disappointed, dear boy, at not being able to get away, but he comes to us in a week or two." She stopped for a moment and turned impulsively to Mrs. Vincent. "But I want to talk about Gerald,"

she said. "He told you of his visit to us? It was years since I had seen him-- Mr. Farley wanted to meet him so much, too," she broke off to add, always careful to include every one in the room in her talk. "They ought to have gone to see him, of course--he had a magnificent part; but Gerald would take Margaret to 'King John'. He thought it would educate her more and amuse her less, I suppose."

"Is Mr. Farley an actor?" Hannah asked.

"Dawson, that ought to take it out of you!" Mrs. Lakeman laughed.

"There's one place in the world, at any rate, where they haven't heard of you." And then turning to Hannah, she said, impressively, "He is the greatest romantic actor in England, Miss Barton."

"It's a thing I am not likely to have heard," Hannah answered. "I have never entered a theatre, or wished to enter one."