rn it. She heard Egremont
laughing--his natural laugh which was so attractive--and then there
fell a silence. She entered.

No, Gilbert had not seated his visitor in the easy chair; that must be
reserved for someone of more importance. Egremont rose with a look of
pleasure.

'You know Miss Trent already?' Gilbert said to him.

Thyrza drew near. She did not hear very distinctly what Egremont was
saying, but certainly he was offering to shake hands. Then Gilbert
placed the easy chair in a convenient position, and she did her best to
sit as she always did. Her manner was not awkward--it was impossible
for her to be awkward--but she was afraid of saying something that
'wasn't grammar,' and to Egremont's agreeable remarks she replied
shortly. Yet even this only gave her an air of shyness which was itself
a grace. When Grail had entered into the conversation she was able to
collect herself.

Gilbert said presently: 'Miss Trent is going to take Bunce's child to
Eastbourne to-morrow, to Mrs. Ormonde's.'

'Indeed!' Egremont exclaimed. 'I was there on Wednesday and heard that
the child was coming. But this arrangement hadn't been made then, I
think?'

'No. Somebody else was to have gone, but she has found she can't.'

'You will be glad to know Mrs. Ormonde, I'm sure,' Egremont said to
Thyrza.

'And I'm glad to go to the seaside,' Thyrza returned. 'I've never seen
the sea.'

'Haven't you? How I wish I could have your enjoyment of to-morrow,
then!'

Mrs. Grail was knitting. She said: 'I think you have voyaged a great
deal, sir?'

It led to talk of travel. Egremont was drawn into stories of East and
West. Ah, how good it was to get out of the circle of social prophecy!
It was like breathing the very mid Atlantic sky to talk gaily and
freely of things wherein no theory was involved, which left aside every
ideal save that of joyous living. Thyrza listened. He--he before
her--had trodden lands whereof the names were to her like echoes from
fairy tales; he had passed days and nights on the bosom of the great
sea, which she looked forward to beholding almost with fear; he had
seen it in tempest, and the laughing descriptions he gave of vast green
rolling mountains made to her inward sight an awful reality.

'You never thought of going to one of the Colonies?' Egremont asked of
Gilbert.

'Yes, years ago,' was the reply, in the tone of a man who sees the
trouble of life behind him. 'I think at one time my mother rather