rself had chosen Penhaven as a place possible to drive
over to as far as Bulstrode was concerned, and far enough away to stop
over in, for tea. Bulstrode carried in his pocket the note of it, she
had written out for him. It bore the arrivals of trains, the address
of the inn; she had herself written this, recurring to a pretty fallacy
she liked to indulge in that Jimmy forgot trains, missed them, and
forgot rendezvous, and that he never really knew. Well, at all events,
he was not likely to miss meeting this one. He had thought about
nothing else since he left her in London and prepared for her as he was
always preparing for her as one makes ready for the dearest guest at a
feast.

The fact that not only had she divinely consented to the Penhaven
scheme, but that she had herself arranged the whole thing, made the
romance of the idea first appeal to herself and then readily to
Bulstrode; the fact that she had been the creator of the little
excursion that gave them to each other for several hours before what
the castle had to offer them of surprise or dulness--did not in any
measure rob the occasion of the charm of the _imprevue_ for the lady
herself. Nor did she in the least feel that it was any the less his
because it was so essentially her own plan.

It proved either too cold or too late to see the cathedral, to see
anything more than the close which, side by side, they had wandered
through together a few moments before tea. Penhaven's distinguished
gloom was not disturbed, and in their subterranean vaults lying all
along their stones, the dukes and the abbes and the duchesses remained
unlit in their stern crypts by the verger's candle on this Christmas
Eve.

At the little vulgar inn (in a stuffy sitting-room a fire had
spluttered for some quarter of an hour before the train arrived), Mrs.
Falconer had made Jimmy his tea in a vulgar little bowl-like teapot,
and as her hands touched the pottery's blue glaze served very well for
a halo. As she buttered him slices of toast herself, and spread them
with gooseberry jam and herself ate and drank and laughed and
chattered, she had been, with the tea things about her and her sleeves
turned back as she cut and buttered and spread, she had been with the
roundness of her wrists and the suave grace of her capable hands, most
adorably a woman, most adorably dear.

Her furs and coat laid aside, the hat at his asking laid aside in
order, although he did not tell her so, t