d third days brought little variation in the
programme. The golfers arrived home a little later, a little earlier,
sat smoking and talking on the verandah, or rested their limbs, and
occupied their brains with contests at chess. Frequently Martin
disappeared to his own room. He had some short articles on hand, which
he was anxious to finish; moreover, being accustomed to long hours in
his study, he grew weary of the sound of voices, and felt at liberty to
take an occasional hour of solitude, now that the Squire was provided
with a companion. So it came about that Dane could never count upon ten
minutes to himself. In the short part of the day which he spent in the
villa, he was continually shadowed by the Squire's big, bronzed
presence; the big voice boomed continually in his ear, challenging him
to fresh contests, haranguing on politics, laying down the law on the
eternal subject of land, and with every hour that passed, there grew in
Dane's breast a smouldering fire of rebellion. The time was passing,
was flying fast; he had the feeling of being continually baffled and
outflanked. In another two days Teresa would arrive, and her coming
seemed to mark the end of,--of _what_? Peignton did not acknowledge to
himself in so many words that he was crazed with disappointment at the
impossibility of spending five uninterrupted minutes in Cassandra's
company; it was easier to skirt round the subject, and declare that he
was tired of golf, bored with the Squire's eternal bluster, yet
reluctant to approach the end of a visit from which he had expected
much.

As he was dressing in the morning he debated how he could escape from
the links, but the solution was difficult to find. Each day's game was
arranged in advance, his own willingness being taken for granted. Had
he not been invited for the special purpose of playing golf?

Again, if in the evening he were to cry off bridge, it would simply mean
that Cassandra was chained to the table. The only chance of a
_tete-a-tete_ lay during the interval between the return from the links
and the serving of dinner, and so persistently was fate against him at
those times, that Dane began to suspect an abetting human agency. Not
the Squire, not Martin, but Grizel herself! It did not seem possible
that it was owing to chance alone that the pawns on the board were so
consistently moved to block his approach!

There is nothing so irritating to the nerves as the fret of continual