every woman is a born actress, and that even the
brief training which Enid had already had was quite enough to enable her
to say one thing, while thinking and feeling something entirely
different.

He smiled for the first time as their hands parted, and said, in a voice
whose calm frankness surprised himself:

"Good morning, Mrs. Garthorne!"--he absolutely couldn't trust himself to
pronounce the word "Enid"--"Thanks, I'm very well, and, as you have
guessed, I am located for the present up in the Retreat yonder. I
confess I was a little startled to see you coming up the road, although
I saw from the _Times_ the other day that you had come back from the
Continent and were coming down here to the Abbey. Of course, you would
hear of the Retreat sooner or later, and as it's a bit of a show place
in its humble way, I had an idea that you would come over some time to
see it."

"Oh, but I suppose you don't allow anything so unholy as a woman to
enter the sacred precincts, do you?"

The artificial flippancy of her tone annoyed him perhaps even more than
it shocked him. There was a sort of scoff in it which rightly or wrongly
he took to himself. It seemed to say "You, of course, have done with
women now and for ever; henceforth, you must only look upon us as
temptations to sin, and so I can say what I like to you."

"On the contrary," he replied, forcing a smile, "the Retreat is as open
for visiting purposes to women as it is to men. It is nothing at all
like a monastery, you know, although report says it is. It is simply a
place where clergymen who have need of it can go and rest and think and
pray in peace, and act as curates to the Superior who is also vicar of
the parish. In fact, it has been known for mothers and sisters of the
men to take rooms in the villages, and they are even invited to lunch."

"Dear me," she said, "how very charming! Of course, you will come over
to the Abbey and have dinner some evening, and sleep, and the next
morning I shall expect you to let me drive you over here and invite me
to lunch."

"Of course, I shall be delighted," he said, purposely using the most
conventional terms, "but I ought to tell you that there is a condition
attached to our hospitality."

"Oh, indeed, and what is that?" she said, glancing up at him with one of
her old saucy looks. "I hope it isn't very stringent. Won't you turn and
walk a little way with me and tell me all about it? There is my pony
carriage coming up t