Fay led Lady Blore frequently to point out that Fay was always well
enough to do what she wanted. Aunt Mary's own Roman nose and stalwart
figure warded off from her the sympathy to which her severe cramps
undoubtedly entitled her.

"When shall I see you again?" said Wentworth, suddenly realising that
the good hour was over.

Fay did not answer. She was confused. A very delicate colour flew to her
cheek.

Wentworth, reddening under his tan, said: "Perhaps Pilgrim Road is a
favourite walk of yours?"

"Yes. I often go there in the afternoon."

"I have to pass that way, too, most days," he said. "It is a short cut
to Lostford."

He had forgotten that an hour before he had announced that he seldom
used that particular path. It did not matter, for Fay had not noticed
the contradiction any more than he did. Fay was easy to get on with
because she never compared what anyone said one day with what they said
the next. She never would feel the doubts, the perplexities that keener
minds had had to fight against in dealing with him.

For the first time she looked at his receding figure with a sense of
regret and loss.

Magdalen was in the house waiting to give her her tea, dear Magdalen who
was so good, and so safe, such a comforter--_but who knew_. Fay shrank
back instinctively as she neared the house, and then crept upstairs to
her own room, and had tea there.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "FAY NOTICED FOR THE FIRST TIME HOW LIGHTLY WENTWORTH
WALKED, HOW SQUARE HIS SHOULDERS WERE"]

Wentworth rode home feeling younger that he had done for years. What is
thirty-nine? No age for a thin man. (He was in reality nearly
forty-one.) He was pleased with himself. How quaintly amusing he had
been about the mouse. He regretted, not for the first time, that he
did not write novels, for little incidents like that, which the
conventional mind of the ordinary novelist was incapable of perceiving,
would intertwine charmingly with a love scene. The small service he had
rendered Fay linked itself to a wish to do something more for her--he
did not know exactly what--but something larger than to-day. Any fool,
any bucolic squireen, could have given her a lift home on a cob. He
would like to do something which another person could _not_ do,
something which would cheer her, console her, and at the same time place
him in a magnanimous light.

We all long for an opportunity to act with generosity and tenderness