ng short
with her. Useless. The shortness was not apparent. It remained, as
all Scrap's evil feelings remained, covered up by the impenetrable veil
of her loveliness.

Mrs. Fisher sat monumentally, and took no notice of either of
them. She had had a curious day, and was a little worried. She had
been quite alone, for none of the three had come to lunch, and none of
them had taken the trouble to let her know they were not coming; and
Mrs. Arbuthnot, drifting casually into tea, had behaved oddly till Lady
Caroline joined them and distracted her attention.

Mrs. Fisher was prepared not to dislike Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose
parted hair and mild expression seemed very decent and womanly, but she
certainly had habits that were difficult to like. Her habit of
instantly echoing any offer made her of food and drink, of throwing the
offer back on one, as it were, was not somehow what one expected of
her. "Will you have some more tea?" was surely a question to which the
answer was simply yes or no; but Mrs. Arbuthnot persisted in the trick
she had exhibited the day before at breakfast, of adding to her yes or
no the words, "Will you?" She had done it again that morning at
breakfast and here she was doing it at tea--the two meals at which Mrs.
Fisher presided and poured out. Why did she do it? Mrs. Fisher failed
to understand.

But this was not what was worrying her; this was merely by the
way. What was worrying her was that she had been quite unable that day
to settle to anything, and had done nothing but wander restlessly from
her sitting-room to her battlements and back again. It had been a
wasted day, and how much she disliked waste. She had tried to read,
and she had tried to write to Kate Lumley; but no--a few words read, a
few lines written, and up she got again and went out on to the
battlements and stared at the sea.

It did not matter that the letter to Kate Lumley should not be
written. There was time enough for that. Let the others suppose her
coming was definitely fixed. All the better. So would Mr. Wilkins be
kept out of the spare-room and put where he belonged. Kate would keep.
She could be held in reserve. Kate in reserve was just as potent as
Kate in actuality, and there were points about Kate in reserve which
might be missing from Kate in actuality. For instance, if Mrs. Fisher
were going to be restless, she would rather Kate were not there to see.
There was a want of dignity about restlessness