e strange erection to which
the motor-veil was attached was removed, Cicely showed a dark head with
hair cut almost short, and parted on the left side. Her eyebrows were
unmistakably blackened, her lips unmistakably--strengthened; and Nelly
saw at once that her guest was in a very feverish and irritated
condition.

'Are you alone?' said Cicely, glancing imperiously round her, when the
disrobing was done.

'Bridget is here.'

'What are you going to do this afternoon?'

'Can't we have a walk, you and I, together?'

'Of course we can. Why should we be bothered with anyone else?'

'I suppose,' said Nelly timidly--'they will come in to tea?'

'"They"? Oh! you mean Willy and Captain Marsworth? It is such a pity
Willy can't find somebody more agreeable for these Sundays.'

Cicely threw herself back in her chair, and lifted a navy-blue boot to
the fire.

'More agreeable than Captain Marsworth?'

'Exactly. Willy can't do anything without him, when he's in these parts;
and it spoils everything!'

Nelly dropped a kiss on Cicely's hair, as she stood beside her.

'Why didn't you put off coming till next week?'

'Why should I allow my plans to be interfered with by Captain
Marsworth?' said Cicely, haughtily. 'I came to see _you_!'

'Well, we needn't see much of him,' said Nelly, soothingly, as she
dropped on a stool beside her friend.

'I'm not going to be kept out of the cottage, by Captain Marsworth, all
the same!' said Cicely hastily. 'There are several books there I want.'

'Oh, Cicely, what have you been doing?' said Nelly, laying her head on
her guest's knees.

'Doing? Nothing that I hadn't a perfect right to do. But I suppose--that
very particular gentleman--has been complaining?'

Nelly looked up, and met an eye, fiercely interrogative, yet trying hard
not to be interrogative.

'I've been doing my best to pick up the pieces.'

'Then he has been complaining?'

'A little narrative of facts,' said Nelly mildly.

'Facts--_facts_!' said Cicely, with the air of a disturbed lioness. 'As
if a man whose ideas of manners and morals date from about--a million
years before the Flood.'

'Dear!--there weren't any manners or morals a million years before the
Flood.'

Cicely drew a breath of exasperation.

'It's all very well to laugh, but if you only knew how _impossible_ that
man is!'

'Then why not get a Sunday free from him?'

Cicely flushed against her will, and said nothing. Nelly's black eyes
obser