ere very
different from the women Ishmael had been seeing of late years--the
dowdy county ladies or Vassie in her splendid flamboyance. He felt oddly
shy with them; the ageing of Judy, so marked and somehow so
unexpected--she had seemed such a child only ten years ago--made him
feel she was as much of a stranger as her little companion, and there
was also about her some new quality he could not but feel, a something
aloof, a little hard, for all her gentleness of manner. He had never
envisaged her as growing into this self-possessed woman, whose most
noticeable quality, had it not been for her aloofness, would have been a
certain worldliness. He felt his dreams of the old time rudely upset.
Killigrew's erratic defection, the altered feeling of Judy, which made
him uncertain even whether to call her by her Christian name as of old
or not, the presence of this oddly-attired girl with the mouth, were all
so different from what he had been expecting. He told himself that when
Killigrew did arrive he also would probably be a different creature from
of old, not knowing that exactly what made Killigrew such a wearing
person to keep up with was that he never changed, only became more
himself.

Judith was not very illuminating on the subject when he questioned her,
merely answering him with an affirmative when he asked her whether she
had seen a good deal of Killigrew since the old days, and he was forced
to keep company with his curiosity till Killigrew should appear out of
the blue a few days hence.

Meanwhile, he drove the two ladies to Mrs. Penticost's, Judy saying that
as they had luggage she thought it would be simpler to go straight there
instead of stopping for supper at the Manor. The next day, however, both
were to meet Boase there for tea.

Meanwhile Ishmael had to relinquish them to the care of Mrs. Penticost
and go back to the Manor, feeling discontented and unable to settle to
anything, while at the same time he was not at all sure he was glad that
Killigrew had ever taken it into his head to come down and send his
harem, as Ishmael annoyedly termed it to himself, before him. Not so
Mrs. Penticost. She still called Judith her lamb, and after folding her
to her portly breast was not likely to feel any tremors when she held
her off to gaze at her.

"You'm gone through somethen' since I saw 'ee, my dear," she announced
candidly. "There's lines under your pretty eyes that dedn' belong to be
there. I shouldn' wonde