und herself at a loss for words, and impelled by some
unknown force to turn her head and look straight into those eyes that
blazed in the little white face.

Why did the girl stare at her so? Why, Joan wondered? A strange,
elfin-like child, a bud on the point of bursting into a wondrous beauty,
Joan realised, and realised too that there was enmity in the dark eyes
that stared at her so mercilessly.

"Ellice, child, go out into the garden," Helen said presently. "Come
with me, we will leave Connie and Joan to have a little talk. Come,
there are lots of things to see. This is a wonderful garden, you
know--far, far better than Buddesby."

"It isn't," Ellice said quietly. "There's no garden in the world like
Buddesby garden, and no place in the world like Buddesby, but I will
come with you if you want me to."

"A strange girl!" Joan said.

"A very dear, good, lovable, but passionate child," Connie said. "Now
let us talk of you and Johnny, Joan, of the future. Helen has told you
that--that she--"

"She wishes to leave us soon? Yes."

"And so," Connie slipped her hand into Joan's, "the marriage need not be
long delayed."

"Whenever--he wishes it," Joan said, and for her life she could not put
any warmth into her voice, and Connie, who noticed most things, noticed
the chill coldness of it.

"And yet she must love Johnny, or she would not marry him," Connie
thought.

"I leave everything to you, and to Helen and to him."

It seemed almost as if Joan had a strange disinclination to utter
Johnny's name. Johnny sounded so babyish, so childlike, so affectionate,
yet she felt that she could not speak of him as "John." It would sound
hard and crude in the ears of those who loved him, and called him by the
more tender name.

It was another shock to Connie later when Johnny came. She watched for
the greeting between these two, and felt shocked and startled when
Johnny took Joan's hand and held it for a moment, then lifted it to his
lips. No other kiss passed between them.

And Connie felt her own cheeks burning, and wondered why.

How strange! Lovers, and particularly accepted lovers, always kissed!

There was that about Johnny that for the first time in her life almost
irritated Connie. She watched him, and saw that his eyes were following
Joan with that look of strange, dog-like devotion that Connie remembered
with a start she had herself surprised in Ellice's eyes before now.

And as she watched, so watched anoth