"Oh, well, _I_ shan't want to write it," Barbara said.

"We thought perhaps you wouldn't," said f.a.n.n.y.

But Barbara had turned to her bureau, affecting a discreet absorption in her list. And presently Ralph Bevan went out into the garden with f.a.n.n.y to gather more tulips.

II

1

She _had_ been dying to know what he had done, but now, after Ralph had stayed to lunch and tea and dinner that first day, after he had spent all yesterday at the Manor, and after he had turned up to-day at ten o'clock in the morning, Barbara thought she had made out the history, though they had been very discreet and f.a.n.n.y had insisted on reading "Tono-Bungay" out loud half the time.

Ralph, of course, was in love with his cousin f.a.n.n.y. To be sure, she must be at least ten years older than he was, but that wouldn't matter.

And, of course, it was rather naughty of him, but then again, very likely he couldn't help it. It had just come on him when he wasn't thinking; and who could help being in love with f.a.n.n.y? You could be in love with people quite innocently and hopelessly. There was no sin where there wasn't any hope.

And perhaps f.a.n.n.y was innocently, ever so innocently, in love with him; or, if she wasn't, Horatio thought she was, which came to much the same thing; so that anyhow poor Ralph had to go. The explanation they had given, Barbara thought, was rather thin, not quite worthy of their admirable intelligence.

It was Friday, Barbara's fifth day. She was walking home with Ralph Bevan through the Waddingtons' park, down the main drive that led from Wyck-on-the-Hill to Lower Wyck Manor.

It wouldn't be surprising, she thought, if f.a.n.n.y were in love with her cousin; he was, as she put it to herself, so distinctly "fallable-in-love-with." She could see f.a.n.n.y surrendering, first to his sudden laughter, his quick, delighted mind, his innocent, engaging frankness. He would, she thought, be endlessly amusing, endlessly interesting, because he was so interested, so amused. There was something that pleased her in the way he walked, hatless, his head thrown back, his shoulders squared, his hands thrust into his coat pockets, safe from gesture; something in the way he spun round in his path to face her with his laughter. He had f.a.n.n.y's terrier nose with the ghost of a kink in it; his dark hair grew back in a sickle on each temple; it wouldn't lie level and smooth like other people's, but sprang up, curled from the clipping. His eyes were his own, dappled eyes, green and grey, black and brown, sparkling; so was his mouth, which was neither too thin nor too thick--determination in the thrusting curve of that lower lip--and his chin, which was just a shade too big for it, a shade too big for his face. His cheeks were sunburnt, and a little shower of ochreish freckles spread from the sunburn and peppered the slopes of his nose. She wanted to sketch him.

"Doesn't Mrs. Waddington ever go for walks?" she said.

"f.a.n.n.y? No. She's too lazy."

"Lazy?"

"Too active, if you like, in other ways.... How long have you known her?"

"Just five days."

"Five _days_?"

"Yes; but, you see, years ago she was my mother's dearest friend. That's how I came to be their secretary. When she saw my name in the advertis.e.m.e.nt she thought it must be me. And it was me. They hadn't seen each other for years and years. My father and Mr. Waddington didn't hit it off together, I believe."

"You haven't seen him yet?"

"No. There seems to be some mystery about him."

"Mystery?"

"Yes. What is it? Or mayn't you tell?"

"I _won't_ tell. It wouldn't be kind."

"Then don't--don't. I didn't know it was that sort of thing."

Ralph laughed. "It isn't. I meant it wouldn't be kind to you. I don't want to spoil him for you."

"Then there _is_--tell me one thing: Shall I get on with him all right?"

"Don't ask me _that_."

"I mean, will he be awfully difficult to work with?"

"Because he sacked me? No. Only you mustn't let on that you know better than he does. And if you want to keep your job, you mustn't contradict him."

"Now you've made me want to contradict him. Whatever he says I shall have to say the other thing whether I agree with him or not."

"Don't you think you could temporize a bit? For her sake."

"Did _you_ temporize?"

"Rather. I was as meek and servile as I knew how."

"As you knew how. Do you think I shall know better?"

"Yes, you're a woman. You can get on the right side of him. Will you try to, because of f.a.n.n.y? I'm most awfully glad she's got you, and I want you to stay. Between you and me she has a very thin time with Waddington."

"There it is. I know--I know--I _know_ I'm going to hate him."

"Oh, no, you're not. You can't _hate_ Waddington."

"_You_ don't?"

"Oh, Lord, no. I wouldn't mind him a bit, poor old thing, if he wasn't f.a.n.n.y's husband."

He had almost as good as owned it, almost put her in possession of their secret. She conceived it--his secret, f.a.n.n.y's secret--as all innocence on her part, all chivalry on his; tender and hopeless and pure.

2

They had come to the white gate that led between the shrubberies and the gra.s.s-plot with the yellow-grey stone house behind it.

It was nice, she thought, of f.a.n.n.y to make Mr. Bevan take her for these long walks when she couldn't go with them; but Barbara felt all the time that she ought to apologize to the young man for not being f.a.n.n.y, especially when Mr. Waddington was coming back to-day by the three-forty train and this afternoon would be their last for goodness knew how long.

And as they talked--about Ralph's life before the war and the jobs he had lost because of it (he had been a journalist), and about Barbara's job at the War Office, and air raids and the games they both went in for, and their favourite authors and the room he had in the White Hart Inn at Wyck--as they talked, fluently, with the ease of old acquaintances, almost of old friends, Barbara admired the beauty of Mr.

Bevan's manners; you would have supposed that instead of suffering, as he must be suffering, agonies of impatience and irritation, he had never enjoyed anything in his life so much as this adventure that was just coming to an end.

He had opened the gate for her and now stood with his back to it, holding out his hand, saying "Good-bye."

"Aren't you coming in?" she said. "Mrs. Waddington expects you for tea."

"No," he said, "she doesn't. She knows I can't come if he's there."

He paused. "By the way, that book of his, it's in an appalling muddle. I hadn't time to do much to it before I left. If you can't get it straight you must come to me and I'll help you."