"I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite kind. I do hope she'll be kind to you this morning. I hate leaving you with her."

"Why, you say she likes me."

"Yes, but that wouldn't prevent--you see she doesn't mind what she says or what she repeats if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny, for instance, to break off our engagement, she'd try."

"Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it would be funnier for us to see her trying. Whatever could she do?"

He kissed the hands that were still busy with the fastenings. "Nothing.

I can't see one thing. We simply lie open to each other, you and I.

There isn't one new corner in either of us that she could reveal.

It's only that I always have in this house the most awful feeling of insecurity."

"Why?"

"If any one says or does a foolish thing it's always here. All the family breezes have started here. It's a kind of focus for aimed and aimless scandal. You know, when my father and mother had their special quarrel, my aunt was mixed up in it,--I never knew how or how much--but you may be sure she didn't calm things down, unless she found things more entertaining calm."

"Rickie! Rickie!" cried the lady from the garden, "Your riding-master's impatient."

"We really oughtn't to talk of her like this here," whispered Agnes.

"It's a horrible habit."

"The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this gossip!" Suddenly he flung his arms over her. "Dear--dear--let's beware of I don't know what--of nothing at all perhaps."

"Oh, buck up!" yelled the irritable Stephen. "Which am I to shorten--left stirrup or right?"

"Left!" shouted Agnes.

"How many holes?"

They hurried down. On the way she said: "I'm glad of the warning. Now I'm prepared. Your aunt will get nothing out of me."

Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong foot according to his invariable custom. She also had to pick up his whip. At last they started, the boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was left alone with her hostess.

"Dido is quiet as a lamb," said Mrs. Failing, "and Stephen is a good fielder. What a blessing it is to have cleared out the men. What shall you and I do this heavenly morning?"

"I'm game for anything."

"Have you quite unpacked?"

"Yes."

"Any letters to write?" No.

"Then let's go to my arbour. No, we won't. It gets the morning sun, and it'll be too hot today." Already she regretted clearing out the men. On such a morning she would have liked to drive, but her third animal had gone lame. She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going to bore her.

However, they did go to the arbour. In languid tones she pointed out the various objects of interest.

"There's the Cad, which goes into the something, which goes into the Avon. Cadbury Rings opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you can't see it. You were there last night. It is famous for the drunken parson and the railway-station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford, that side of the stream, connected with Cadover, this. Observe the fertility of the Wiltshire mind."

"A terrible lot of Cads," said Agnes brightly.

Mrs. Failing divided her guests into those who made this joke and those who did not. The latter cla.s.s was very small.

"The vicar of Cadford--not the nice drunkard--declares the name is really 'Chadford,' and he worried on till I put up a window to St. Chad in our church. His Cambridge wife p.r.o.nounces it 'Hyadford.' I could smack them both. How do you like Podge? Ah! you jump; I meant you to.

How do you like Podge Wonham?"

"Very nice," said Agnes, laughing.

"Nice! He is a hero."

There was a long interval of silence. Each lady looked, without much interest, at the view. Mrs. Failing's att.i.tude towards Nature was severely aesthetic--an att.i.tude more sterile than the severely practical. She applied the test of beauty to shadow and odour and sound; they never filled her with reverence or excitement; she never knew them as a resistless trinity that may intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If she liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of colour--not also as a hint of the endless strength of the earth. And today she could approve of one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss Pembroke, she was not approving or objecting at all. "A hero?" she queried, when the interval had pa.s.sed. Her voice was indifferent, as if she had been thinking of other things.

"A hero? Yes. Didn't you notice how heroic he was?"

"I don't think I did."

"Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out for heroism at dinner. It is their great time. They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts.

Do you mean to say that you never noticed how he set down Rickie?"

"Oh, that about poetry!" said Agnes, laughing. "Rickie would not mind it for a moment. But why do you single out that as heroic?"

"To snub people! to set them down! to be rude to them! to make them feel small! Surely that's the lifework of a hero?"

"I shouldn't have said that. And as a matter of fact Mr. Wonham was wrong over the poetry. I made Rickie look it up afterwards."

"But of course. A hero always is wrong."

"To me," she persisted, rather gently, "a hero has always been a strong wonderful being, who champions--"

"Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have been a dragon most of my life, I think. A dragon that wants nothing but a peaceful cave. Then in comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being, and gains a princess by piercing my hide. No, seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief characteristics of a hero are infinite disregard for the feelings of others, plus general inability to understand them."

"But surely Mr. Wonham--"

"Yes; aren't we being unkind to the poor boy. Ought we to go on talking?"

Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of Rickie, and thinking that anything she said might perhaps be repeated.

"Though even if he was here he wouldn't understand what we are saying."

"Wouldn't understand?"

Mrs. Failing gave the least flicker of an eye towards her companion.

"Did you take him for clever?"

"I don't think I took him for anything." She smiled. "I have been thinking of other things, and another boy."

"But do think for a moment of Stephen. I will describe how he spent yesterday. He rose at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The song was called, 'Father's boots will soon fit Willie.' He stopped once to say to the footman, 'She'll never finish her book. She idles: 'She' being I. At eleven he went out, and stood in the rain till four, but had the luck to see a child run over at the level-crossing. By half-past four he had knocked the bottom out of Christianity."

Agnes looked bewildered.