n."

She strode away, munching her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless into
the parlour, to shake the shaking George.

"Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn't you come
out and do your duty?"

"Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?" he
said.

"Once. I daren't look again. Who is she?"

"God--a local deity then. Anyway, she's another of the things you're
expected to know by instinct."

Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady
Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in the
neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible Providence. George
made her talk of that family for an hour.

"Laughter," said Sophie afterward in their own room, "is the mark of the
savage. Why couldn't you control your emotions? It's all real to her."

"It's all real to me. That's my trouble," he answered in an altered
tone. "Anyway, it's real enough to mark time with. Don't you think so?"

"What d'you mean?" she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.

"That I'm better. I'm well enough to kick."

"What at?"

"This!" He waved his hand round the one room. "I must have something to
play with till I'm fit for work again."

"Ah!" She sat on the bed and leaned forward, her hands clasped. "I
wonder if it's good for you."

"We've been better here than anywhere," he went on slowly. "One could
always sell it again."

She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.

"The only thing that worries me is what happened this morning. I want to
know how you feel about it. If it's on your nerves in the least we can
have the old farm at the back of the house pulled down, or perhaps it
has spoiled the notion for you?"

"Pull it down?" she cried. "You've no business faculty. Why, that's
where we could live while we're putting the big house in order. It's
almost under the same roof. No! What happened this morning seemed to be
more of a--of a leading than anything else. There ought to be people at
Pardons. Lady Conant's quite right."

"I was thinking more of the woods and the roads. I could double the
value of the place in six months."

"What do they want for it?" She shook her head, and her loosened hair
fell glowingly about her cheeks.

"Seventy-five thousand dollars. They'll take sixty-eight."

"Less than half what we paid for our old yacht when we married. And we
didn't have a good time in her. You were--"

"Well, I discovered I was too much of an Am