each of the names
he might enumerate would represent to Rendel a possible inexorable
judge. "Half London is here: Lady Chaloner, Pateley--all sorts of
people."

"Pateley?" said Rendel, the blood rushing to his face at the association
of ideas called up in his mind by that name.

"Of course," said Wentworth. "Pateley, flourishing like the bay-tree.
They say he is making thousands, and he looks as if he were."

"Out of the _Arbiter_?" asked Rendel.

"The _Arbiter_, I suppose, or something else. But I have no doubt he
would tell you if you asked him. He does not impress me as being one of
the very reserved kind."

"I don't know," said Rendel. "I don't suppose Pateley ever says more
than he means to say, with all his air of hearty communicativeness."

"Well, I daresay not," said Wentworth. "The man's very good company
after all; and as long as none of our secrets are in his keeping, it
doesn't matter particularly."

Rendel said nothing. He felt he could not meet Pateley face to face at
this moment.

"What do you do, then, all day here," said Wentworth, "if you don't
drink the waters, and don't go to the Casino, and don't play Bridge?"

"I don't know. I don't do very much," said Rendel, with an involuntary
accent in the words that made Wentworth ponder over the undesirability
of marrying a wife who is in mourning and depressed.

"You should go into the wood," said Wentworth, "as the Germans do. We
found a lot of them the other day singing part-songs out of little
books. There is a band of them here called the Society of the United
Thrushes, composed of the most respectable and most middle-aged ladies
of the district."

"That sounds charming," said Rendel.

"Look here," said Wentworth, "if you don't care to walk alone, do let's
walk together. One can go up here and along the wood for miles. We'll
have good long stretches as we used to at Oxford. What do you think,
Mrs. Rendel? Don't you think it would be a good thing for him?"

"Very," said Rachel with a smile. "I think he ought to go and walk."

"That's capital," said Wentworth. "Let's do that to-morrow, shall we?"

"I should like it very much," said Rendel.

But the next day the weather broke, and was unsettled for three days. On
the Tuesday morning, happily for the bazaar and the big tent in the
grounds of the Casino, the sun shone out again, and everything was
radiant as before. Wentworth turned up at the pavilion in the forenoon
and persuaded Rendel