of
humanity that we sometimes dislike people for their sufferings, hate
them for a cough or sniff. And now Martin was on the point of blaming
Freda for the weakness he had once adored. Why wasn't she strong like
Margaret or Viola? Why didn't she understand about the moor and
wind-swept spaces and the miracle of hitting a golf-ball?

While he was bearing the olive branch these questions, dreaded and
strongly combated, kept forcing themselves into the narrow passes of
his mind as the Persian host flooded into Thermopylae. It was futile
to feign deafness: in time they would force a hearing. And there were
other less easily worded doubts and apprehensions.

Perhaps the summer-time came as a release. More than he would have
cared to admit, Martin wanted to be alone, to see Freda
dispassionately, from a distance. And so to Oxford.

Freda, while undergoing all unconsciously this dispassionate
appreciation, retired to London. But within a few weeks' time she had
received another invitation to Devonshire, and tired not so much of
town as of her relations she gladly accepted.

At The Steading were a Mr and Mrs Brodrick with their daughter. Arthur
Brodrick had been contemporary with John Berrisford at Oxford and had
passed high into the Indian Civil Service. Just before his time for a
pension was due he had been invalided home and had missed the full
reward of his service. The Brodricks lived at Sutton in a remote
mediocrity of wealth more galling than actual poverty.

Was it Chance again, the Chance that had brought a perfect Easter and
put Martin on his game, that now seemed to keep the conversation on
Oriental diseases and the rigours of imperial service? Certainly Freda
heard more of fever in distant stations than of health and company at
Simla. But the Brodricks had not been divorced from patriotism by the
hardness of their lot: they still believed in the flag, in the pomp and
state of the British Raj, in stately dinners at Government House where
the couples went down to the feast in order of social precedence, and
they recounted squabbles, petty but bitter antagonisms, of rival ladies
who considered themselves insulted by their positions in the troop of
diners.

Freda listened silently and learned.

So this was the life for which she had bargained. Eternal fever--so
they implied--eternal society of the Brodricks and their kind! For
Martin with his work to love and his career to think about such things