"Miss Vigers? But she resigned! She had been meaning to leave! She told us so! Do you mean that she didn't want to leave? Do you mean that she had to?"

"Have you ever seen a liner launched? You press an electric b.u.t.ton, you know--just a touch--it's awfully simple----" She paused, eyes dancing.

But Alwynne had no answering twinkle.

"I wouldn't have believed it," she said slowly. Then, distractedly, "But why, Clare, why? What possessed you?"

"She got in my way," said Clare indolently.

Alwynne turned on her, eyes blazing.

"You mean to say--you deliberately did that poor old thing out of her job? If you did----But I don't believe it. If you did----Clare, excuse me--but I think it was beastly."

"_Demon! With the highest respect to you_----" quoted Clare, tongue in cheek.

But Alwynne was not to be pacified.

"Clare--you didn't, did you?"

"My dear, she was in the way. She worried you and you worried me. I don't like being worried."

Alwynne shivered.

"Don't, Clare! I hate you to talk like that--even in fun. It's--it's so cold-blooded."

"In fun!" Clare laughed lightly. Alwynne's youthful severity amused her.

But she had gone, she perceived, a trifle too far. "Well, then, in earnest--joking apart----"

Alwynne's face relaxed. Of course, she had known all along that Clare was in fun....

"Joking apart--it was time for Miss Vigers to go. I admit saying what I thought to Miss Marsham. I am quite ready to take responsibility. She was too old--too fussy--too intolerant--I can't stand intolerance. She had to go."

Alwynne looked wicked.

"Clare, you remind me of a man I met, down at Compton. You ought to get on together. He's great on tolerance too. So tolerant that five hundred years ago he'd have burned every one who wasn't as tolerant as he. As it is, he shrugs them out of existence, _a la_ Podsnap. Just as you did Miss Vigers just now."

"Who was he?"

"Don't know--only met him once. But he tickled me awfully. He hadn't the faintest idea how funny he was."

"Did he shrug you out of existence?"

"My dear Clare--could any one snub me? You might as well snub a rubber ball."

"Yes, you're pretty thick-skinned." Clare paid her back reflectively.

Alwynne winced.

"Am I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be. How, just now?"

Clare yawned.

"Well, for one thing, you needn't flavour your conversation exclusively with Denes. They bore me worse than if they had an 'a' in them."

"I'm sorry." Alwynne paused. Then she plucked up courage. "Clare, I stayed there two months. The Dene people are my friends, my great friends. I don't think you need sneer at them."

Clare yawned again.

"I wonder you ever came back, if they're so absorbing. What is the particular attraction there, by the way? The old women or the young men?"

Alwynne's lips quivered.

"Clare, what has happened? What is the matter with you nowadays? Why are you grown so different? Why are you always saying unkind things?"

Clare shrugged her shoulders.

"Really, Alwynne, I am not accustomed to be cross-examined. Such a bore, giving reasons. Besides, I haven't got any. Oh, don't look such a martyr."

"I think I'll go home," said Alwynne in a low voice. "I don't think you want me."

"But Elsbeth does, doesn't she?"

Clare settled herself more comfortably in the comfortable Chesterfield as she watched Alwynne out of the room. She lay like a sleepy cat, listening to the m.u.f.fled sounds of Alwynne's packing; let her get ready to her hat and her gloves and the lacing of her boots, before she called her back, and played with her, and forgave her at the last. Yet she found Alwynne less pliable than usual: convicted of sin, she was yet resolved on departure, if not to-day--no, of course she would not go to-day, after behaving so ill to her Clare--then, the day following.

That would be Friday--a completed fortnight--and Sat.u.r.day was Clare's birthday--had Clare forgotten? Alwynne hadn't, anyhow. Oh, she must come for Sat.u.r.day, and what would Elsbeth say to that? There must be one evening, at least, given to Elsbeth in between. After all, it was jolly dull for Elsbeth all by herself.

Clare, good-tempered for the first time that afternoon, supposed it was, rather.

But on that particular day, Alwynne's qualms of conscience were unnecessary. Elsbeth was not at all dull. Elsbeth, on the contrary, was tremendously excited. And Elsbeth had forgotten all about Alwynne, was not missing her in the least. Elsbeth had received a letter from Dene that morning, and was expecting Roger Lumsden to supper.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

Elsbeth spent her day in that meticulous and unnecessary arrangement and re-arrangement of her house and person, with which woman, since time was, has delighted to honour man, and which he, the unaccountable, has as inevitably failed to notice. The clean cretonnes had arrived in time and were tied and smoothed into place; the vases new-filled; and the fire, though spring-cleaning had been, sprawled opulently in a brickless grate. The matches, with the fifty cigarettes Elsbeth had bought that forenoon, hesitating and all too reliant upon the bored tobacconist, lay, aliens unmistakable, near Roger's probable seat, and the knowledge of the supper laid out in the next room fortified Elsbeth as, years ago, a new frock might have done. Alwynne, in every age and stage, dotted the piano and occasional tables, and a photograph that even Alwynne had never seen was placed on the mantelshelf, that Roger, greeting Elsbeth, might see it and forget to be shy.

But it was Elsbeth that was shy, when Roger, very punctual, arrived amid the chimes of the evening service. Yet Elsbeth had been ready since five. They greeted each other in dumb show and sat a moment, smiling and taking stock, while the clamour swelled, insisted, ebbed and died away.

Roger, still silent, began to fumble at a case he carried, while Elsbeth found herself apologetically and for the thousandth time wondering to her guest why she had taken root so near a church, while within herself a hard voice cried exultantly, "He's his father, his father over again!

Nothing of Rosemary there!" and she tasted a little strange flash of triumph over the dead woman she had been too gentle to hate.

But suddenly her lap was filled with roses, bunch upon tight masculine bunch, and the formal sentences broke up into incoherence as Roger stooped and kissed his second cousin Elsbeth.

They soon made friends. Roger, who had never quite forgotten her, found the pleasant-faced spinster as attractive as the pretty lady of his childhood. He examined her as he ate his supper. A spare figure, soft grey hair, and square, capable hands; a kind mouth, not a strong one, set in lines firmer than were natural to it; gentle eyes, no longer beautiful, and a cheerful, tired smile; a sweet face, thought Roger, not a happy one. Yet she had Alwynne! She fluttered a little over the meal, and was anxious about his coffee, and full of little enquiries and attentions that were never irritating. There was a faint scent of verbena as she moved about him, and her silk gown did not crackle like younger women's dresses. She listened well, but he guessed her no talker, and later in the evening, gauged her affection for Alwynne by her breathless fluency. He thought her charming and a little pathetic, and wondered why n.o.body had ever insisted on marrying her.

Elsbeth's shyness soon dwindled; she slipped quickly into the informal "aunt and nephew" att.i.tude that he evidently expected, and found his friendliness and obvious pleasure in her as delightful as it was astonishing. She supposed, with a wistful little shrug, that she was near the rose! Nevertheless she enjoyed herself.

They talked in narrowing circles: of his father a little; more of his mother; of Dene, and Elsbeth's former visits. He described Compton and The Dears, and his gardens and his roses. Then, with a chuckle, an unauthorised attempt of Alwynne at pruning that had ended in disaster; and so plunged into confidences.