to keep their dogs
quiet, and to await them here as they return from their church."

"You are too good to the children," says Brandolin, still with
restraint. Her eyes open with increased surprise. She has never seen his
manner, usually so easy, nonchalant, and unstudied, altered before.

"He must have heard bad news," she thinks, but says nothing, and keeps
her book open.

Brandolin stands near, silent and absorbed. He is musing what worlds he
would give, if he had them, to know whether the story is true! He longs
passionately to ask her in plain words, but it would be too brutal and
too rude; he has not known her long enough to be able to presume to do
so.

He watches the sunshine fall through the larch boughs on to her hands in
their long loose gloves and touch the pearls which she always wears at
her throat.

"How very much he is unlike himself!" she thinks; she misses his
spontaneous and picturesque eloquence, his warm _abandon_ of manner, his
caressing deference of tone. At that moment there is a gleam of white
between the trees, a sound of voices in the distance.

The family party are returning from church. The dogs jump up and wag
their tails and bark their welcome. The Babe is dashing on in advance.
There is an end of their brief _tete-a-tete_; he passionately regrets
the loss of it, though he is not sure of what he would have said in it.

"Always together!" says Dulcia Waverley, in a whisper, to Usk, as she
sees them. "Does he know that he succeeds Lord Gervase, do you think?"

"How should I know?" says Usk; "and Dolly says there was nothing between
her and Gervase,--nothing; at least it was all in honor, as the French
say."

"Oh, of course," agrees Lady Waverley, with her plaintive eyes gazing
dreamily down the aisle of larch-trees. The children have run on to
Madame Sabaroff.

"Where is Alan?" thinks Dolly Usk, angrily, on seeing Brandolin.

Gervase, who is not an early riser, is then taking his coffee in bed as
twelve strikes. He detests an English Sunday: although at Surrenden it
is disguised as much as possible to look like any other day, still there
is a Sunday feeling in the air, and Usk does not like people to play
cards on Sundays: it is his way of being virtuous vicariously.

"Primitive Christianity," says Brandolin, touching the white feathers of
Dodo's hat and the white lace on her short skirts.

"We only go to sleep," replies the child, disconsolately. "We might just
as well go to