She looked at him earnestly. "Please forgive me for asking," she said hesitatingly, "but yesterday I thought you said--you spoke as if you did not mean to keep me here. Did you mean that, or was it my fancy?"

He cleared his throat. "Oh, that was your fancy. Certainly it was. I was only thinking that--of course everything is uncertain--human life, for instance. I'm a good deal older than you. If anything should--should happen to me, for example--this place would be yours. I have bequeathed it to you. So it is worth your while to make it what you like."

"If anything happened to you?" Obviously she was surprised, and also distressed. "Osbert, what is likely to happen to you?"

"Oh, nothing, of course," he replied hastily. "Only sometimes the unexpected may arrive, may it not?"

"Don't talk like that," she cried impetuously. "It would be too dreadful, if anything stopped us just at the beginning--just as we are making a start. Oh, do you remember----" She broke off short.

"I remember every single smallest thing you ever did or said," he threw out suddenly.

"Then you remember when you and I had lunch together at the Savoy. I bored you horribly by trying to make conversation, when you didn't want to talk; and you told me that you knew all about me, as if you had known me all my life. I didn't think it was true," she laughed, playing with a fork and not daring to look at him. "Do you think it was?"

"It was as false, as detestable, as mistaken, and as insulting as all the other things I said that day," was his energetic answer.

She looked up then, and smiled at him. She was beginning to adjust her ideas.

"Then you are not thinking of sending me away?" she begged to know.

"Put that completely out of your head."

"If that is so, it will be the greatest fun to set to work upon the garden." She paused, recollected herself. "Will that interest you too?

I beg your pardon for asking, but I do know so ridiculously little about you; and, you see, your garden doesn't _look_ as if you liked gardens, if you will forgive me for saying it."

"I've been so lonely," he answered meekly. "There was n.o.body who cared whether the garden was nice or not. If you care, why I shall take the most tremendous interest in it."

She was evidently quite satisfied. "Let me see," she reflected. "How soon can we begin? I must go and say how-do-you-do to Mrs. Wells, and she will tell me what I am to order for dinner; and then I must send a line to Joey, and ask her to come over to tea to-morrow."

"You have a car of your own now," he broke in. "Don't be beholden to her any more than you wish."

"She was very kind," said Virgie, "and I know she would like to come if you don't mind. I'm sorry for her too."

"Why are you sorry for her?"

She looked up at him, with a half smile, and an appeal for response.

"Her husband is such a--such a _dreadful_ person, isn't he?"

Gaunt, for the first time in their mutual acquaintance, gave the sympathy, the understanding for which she begged. He smiled, in the same way that she smiled, as if they were thoroughly in accord upon the point of Mr. Ferris. "Poor old Joey!" he replied. "Your society must be a G.o.dsend to her. They were kind to me while you were away. I went there several times. Joey let me read your letters to her."

This last was very tentatively said, with an apprehensive glance.

Virgie laughed, however. "Such silly letters," she remarked. Then, laying aside her table-napkin and rising: "Then in an hour's time, shall we go out in the garden?"

He eagerly a.s.sented. "I'll go down to the lodge and get Emerson to come along," he told her. "Then we can plan something."

They spent the entire morning in the garden, and at lunch time there was certainly no lack of conversation. In the absorbing topic of rock-gardening, the idea of redecorating the house fell temporarily into the background.

They motored into Buxton that afternoon, and spent some time viewing the plants in a celebrated nursery garden. Gaunt had learned to drive the car during her absence, and was himself at the wheel, which fact lessened for him the hardship of the situation. He was occupied with his driving, and not drawn irresistibly by the magnet of her charm.

That evening, however, after dinner, when they were together in her beautiful warm white room, the tug of war began. He had to smother down the impulse to fight for his life, to make some kind of blundering bid for the love which he knew in his heart had been given to Rosenberg before he ever saw her.

Virginia could not but suppose that his coldness, his complete aloofness, his apparent declining of all beginnings of intimacy, arose from sheer shyness. She believed that some things are better and more easily expressed without words. Thus, that evening, when he was at the piano, playing out his heartache in soft, sad chords in pa.s.sionate, rapid movements, she came and stood behind him--close behind him.

This was hard, but he bore it. Manfully he went on playing for a while; but the influence of her presence standing there, the emanation of her personality, checked his fingers. He stumbled, missed a note, dropped his hands, sat silent.

"It is cold, so far from the fire," said her coaxing voice. "I've been making you play till your fingers are frozen;" with which she took them in her velvet, soft clasp.

This was too much. He drew his hand from her clinging touch with a sensation as though he tore it from a trap, lacerating it in the attempt. He sprang from his seat. "Jove! I have just thought of something I must tell Hemming," he muttered hurriedly; and, pushing past her, left the room by way of the door into his own den.

Virginia stood amazed, confused, and somewhat uncomfortable.

This, her first advance, must certainly be her only one. She went and sat on the hearth-rug, gazing into the fire, and puzzling. Suddenly a clear light shone upon the darkness of her musing. But, of course!...

Gaunt had not married her for love, but in pursuance of some half-crazed scheme of vengeance. He had thought it his duty to reform a heartless, selfish coquette. Now that he had found her to be very unlike his preconceived idea of her, what did he, what could he, want with her?...

Why had she not sooner perceived this obvious truth? Colour flooded her, she blushed hotly in the solitude. His plans had proved abortive, and he found himself saddled with a young woman with whose company he would, no doubt, gladly dispense. He was apparently ready to continue their present semi-detached existence, so long as she made no attempt to force the barriers of his confidence or intimacy. She remembered, on reflection, that he had made no appeal to her, that he had confessed nothing. He had not even begged for forgiveness. He had merely owned himself mistaken in his estimate of her. Since the outburst which had, as it seemed, been shaken out of him at the unexpected sight of her, he had stood on guard all the time. She had really been very slow and stupid, or she would have seen, long ago, how embarra.s.sing her presence must be, unless she grasped the terms of their mutual relation.

Her lips curved into an involuntary smile as she recalled her well-meant attempt at a kindness he did not want. She bit her lip as she gazed into the fire. "We-e-ell!" she said aloud, with a little grimace, "I've been slow at picking up my cue, but I think I've got it now."

Almost as she spoke Gaunt re-entered, and Grim the collie slunk in at his heels.

"I'm most awfully sorry for bolting like that, but it was important,"

he said, in tones of would-be friendly frankness. With that he turned to shut the dog out.

"Oh, let her come in, poor old girl! What has she done to be shut out?"

cried Virgie, sitting on her heels upon the floor.

"I--I don't think your cats like her," he replied, hesitating.

"Well, I never! They will have to like her. If they are to live in the same house, they must be friends," was the quick retort. "Grim, Grim, poor old girl, come here then!"

Grim, more perceptive than her master, was quick to perceive the invitation in the sweet voice, and came bounding into the circle of firelight. Damian sat up and spat, his back an arch, his tail a column.

Virgie flung her arms round Grim's handsome neck and hugged her.

"Don't you take a bit of notice of that cheeky kitten, my dear. If he doesn't like you, he can lump you. This was your house, long before he was born or thought of," she said, petting the collie till her tail thumped the ground with ecstasy; her tongue hung out and she s...o...b..red with utter content.

"Osbert," said Virgie calmly, "there's a sheepskin mat out in the hall that would just do for her beside the fire here in the corner. If that is her place, the cats will very soon recognise it. Will you go and fetch it in for me, please?"

"But"--he paused--"this is your room, isn't it? and Grim's a big dog.

Her place is in my den."

"Oh, she'll very soon find out where the warmest corner is, won't you, girl?" laughed Virgie. "Even if _you_ won't come into my room, I'll warrant she will! Unless"--with a daring glance--"you mean us to have separate establishments, even to the dogs and cats?"

He began to speak, halted, then said quietly enough: "I want you to have things as you like. I think you know that, really."

"Then this poor old thing shall come in just whenever she wants to,"

said Virgie, holding the golden muzzle in her hand, and kissing the white star upon the dog's forehead.

Gaunt, watching, made a note of the exact spot.