Sir William was expected? Nelly had only just begun to
notice it, and to fall back instinctively on Miss Martin's company
whenever it could be had. She hated her own vague annoyance with
Bridget's behaviour, just because she could not pour herself out to
George about it. It was really too silly and stupid to talk about. She
supposed--she dreaded--that Bridget might be going to ask Sir William
some favour; that she meant to make use of his kindness to her sister in
order to work upon him. How horrible that would be!--how it would spoil
everything! Nelly began sometimes to dream of moving, of going to
Borrowdale, or to the coast at Scascale. And then, partly her natural
indolence, and partly her clinging to every rock and field in this
beautiful place where she had been so happy, intervened; and she let
things slide.

Yet when Sir William and Cicely arrived, to find Bridget making tea, and
Nelly listening with a little frown of effort, while Marsworth, pencil
in hand, was drawing diagrams _a la Belloc_, to explain to her the
Russian retreat from Galicia, how impossible not to feel cheered by
Farrell's talk and company! The great _bon enfant_, towering in the
little room, and positively lighting it up by the red-gold of his-hair
and beard, so easily entertained, so overflowing with kind intentions,
so fastidious intellectually, and so indulgent morally:--as soon as he
appeared he filled the scene.

'No fresh news, dear Mrs. Sarratt, nothing whatever,' he said at once,
meeting her hungry eyes. 'And you?'

She shook her head.

'Don't worry. You'll get it soon. I've sent the motor back to Windermere
for the evening papers.'

Meanwhile Marsworth found himself reduced to watching Cicely, and
presently he found himself more angry and disgusted than he had ever yet
been. How could she? How dared she? On this day of all days, to be
snobbishly playing the great lady in Mrs. Sarratt's small sitting-room!
Whenever that was Cicely's mood she lisped; and as often as Marsworth,
who was sitting far away from her, talking to Bridget Cookson, caught
her voice, it seemed to him that she was lisping--affectedly--monstrously.
She was describing for instance a certain ducal household in which she
had just been spending the week-end, and Marsworth heard her say--

'Well at last, poor Evelyn' ('poor Evelyn' seemed to be a youthful
Duchess, conducting a war economy campaign through the villages of her
husband's estate), 'began to get thre