of Yvonne: there was no tinge of spite in
her jeering eyes.

So the sisters remained on the lawn, and Jack Bendish, a
perfectly simple young man, walked off with Rowsley to pick a
cabbage leaf. Isabel was demureness itself as she followed with
Captain Hyde. The embroidered muslin gave her courage, more
courage perhaps than if she could have heard his frank opinion of
it. "The trailing skirt of the young girl," said Miss Stafford
to herself, "made a gentle frou-frou as she swept over the velvet
lawn." A quoi revent les junes filles? Very innocent was the
vanity of Isabel's dreams. She was not strictly pretty, but she
was young and fresh, and the spotless muslin fell in graceful
folds round her tall, lissome figure. To the jaded man of the
world at her side . . . . Alas for Isabel! The jaded man of
the world was a trifle bored: he was easily bored. He liked
listening to Miss Stafford's artless merriment but he had no
desire to share in it; what had he to say to a promoted
schoolgirl in her Sunday best?

He began politely making conversation. "What a pretty place this
is!" It seemed wiser not to refer even by way of apology to the
indiscretion of the morning. "You have a beautiful view over the
Plain. Rather dreary in winter though, isn't it?"

"I like it best then," said Isabel briefly. "Don't you want any
strawberries?" She indicated the netted furrows among which
little could be seen of Rowsley and Jack Bendish except their
stern ends.

"No, thanks, I had too much tea." Isabel checked herself on the
brink of reminding him that he had eaten only two cucumber
sandwiches and a macaroon. In Lawrence Hyde's society her
conversation had not its usual happy flow, she felt tonguetied
and missish. "How close you are to the Downs here!" They were
following a flagged path between espalier pear trees, and beds of
broccoli and carrots and onions, and borders full of old standard
roses and lavender and sweet herbs and tall lilies; at the end
appeared a wishing gate in a low stone wall, and beyond it,
pathless and sunshiny, the southern stretches of the Plain. "Are
you a great gardener, Miss Isabel?"

"Some," said Isabel. "I look after my pet vegetables. The
flowers have to look after themselves. My father has eruptions
of industry." She overflowed into a little laugh. "We don't
encourage him in it. He had a bad attack of weeding last spring,
and pulled up all my little salads by mistake." Now that small