"She is as straight as a yard o' pump water, an' won't never brush
forty again," said Martha up to her elbows in flour, austerely, "but I
wouldn't trust her for that neither. No! Not with Bate comin' into his
dinner wantin' comfort. He have a trick o' blushin', Miss H'Aura, as
sympathy might make a marryin' on--an' I won't have it in the 'ouse."
"But I thought," said Aura gravely, for she was accustomed by now to
Martha's view of the new parlour-maid, "that Bate gave Parkinson no
encouragement."
"Encouragement," echoed Martha bitterly, "no more he do. Why! he don't
even wink at her. Give her the cold shoulder constant; but there!
she's o' that sort, Miss H'Aura, as don't mind whether a jint's 'ot or
cold so long as it's man's meat. Besides, master 'ud need a woman folk
to stand atwixt him and the fun'ral if there was a smash in the motor,
for Bate ain't no manner of use when there's tears about--'es got such
a feelin' 'eart. So, thanking 'is lordship all the same for the kind
thought, I'd better stop at 'ome."
There was never any questioning Martha's decision; so Aura went back
to the drawing-room doubtfully. It was a glorious day and Ned
Blackborough had come over half-an-hour before, bearing both to
herself and her grandfather notes of invitation from Mrs. Tressilian
to come over to lunch and see the show place. The notes had evidently
been all in order, for though her grandfather had declined brusquely
for himself, he had looked at her as if he had just realised she was
no longer a child, and asked her wistfully if she would like to go.
And she without a thought had told the truth--namely that she would
love it. Then had come doubts. The last three days, filled up as they
had been by the absolute adulation of the two young men had brought
her a curious, innate, but till then dormant, sense that there were
things which girls ought not to do. And having, much against her will,
admitted this to herself, she became sternly scrupulous.
Ought she, or ought she not to go alone with Lord Blackborough in the
motor? She knitted her brows over the problem, telling herself the
while that she hated the world and every one in it. Then Lord
Blackborough--he had an uncomfortable habit of reading her thoughts
which she bitterly resented--had suggested Martha. And now Martha
would not come. It was all such silly nonsense!
Ned Blackborough, watching her troubled face, felt that he could then
and there have put his arms round her, kissed her even against her
will and carried her right away from everything and everybody; from
all conventionalities and princes and powers. She was a perpetual
temptation to him to cast aside what few moorings he had. He was a man
and she the one and only woman in the whole wide world; and he wanted
her.
It was a headlong, purely emotional desire from which--curiously
enough it struck him--passion was almost entirely absent. In a way,
despite his greater reserve, there was more of passion in Ted's
rational, straightforward, more normal love.
The very emotionality of Ned's feeling, however, carried with it
content and certainty; for he felt that nothing in heaven or earth
could dim the halo of flame and fire in which he stood beside her.
So he could afford to be magnanimous. "Then you had better take the
fourth seat, Ted!" he said carelessly, looking to where the latter,
his hands in his pockets, was glooming out of the window at the motor
which could just be seen waiting through the bare branches across the
drawbridge.
He had already had a casual invitation for himself and his cycle
thrown at him, he felt, like a bone to a dog. But he had refused it.
Pleasant work, indeed, riding in the dusty wake of a rival who was
abducting the girl you loved at the rate of five-and-twenty miles an
hour in a Panhard.
From every point of view he had decided it would be wiser to stop at
home, possess his soul in patience, and keep Aura's grandfather in a
good humour. For the more he saw of Aura the more he realised that her
choice was likely to follow the lead of her environment. He was very
clear-sighted, very much in earnest. The unconventionality of the
position irked him, and he heartily wished that he could quarrel with
Ned, or even huff him--as people always did on these occasions. But
that was out of the question; he was bound to be friendly and fight
for the girl fairly. Yet, being what he was, a man with a natural gift
for business, he could not help drawing up his prospectus, as it were,
and counting up all his available assets. His love had nothing of
Ned's impetuosity about it, so with all his real passion for Aura he
soon realised that it was wise not to show it too much.
It frightened her. The brotherly tack ensured quicker confidence. And,
of course, Sylvanus Smith's liking for him was a great point in his
favour. Regarding this, he did not feel in any way mean, for he
himself liked the old fellow, and found his somewhat antiquated talk
interesting.
But this later offer of Ned's was another thing; he looked round and
accepted it heartily, feeling, however, as he often did when he looked
at Ned's face, a trifle of a sneak; for he was fighting impulse with
strategy, and he felt convinced that he was right in doing so.
He was, nevertheless, in danger of forgetting his role when Aura made
her appearance dressed for her drive. She had a little conscious flush
in her face, the result of having for the first time in her life tried
on and rejected various articles of attire. So far as the dress and
coat went, she had no choice. Her method of life made washing dresses
a necessity; and for winter white was the only colour which would
survive Martha's vigorous washing. So her serge, toned to a decided
cream by those same efforts after cleanliness, was unalterable, and
the furs she had found in the boxes of outworn apparel, which her
grandfather had handed over to her on her sixteenth birthday, were
also a permanent asset. She had no notion of their worth--she supposed
they were sable; she knew that when the darker longer hairs blew aside
the inner fluff was exactly the bronze hue of her hair. It was her
head-covering which troubled her. She tried a scarlet Tam-o'-Shanter
but flung it aside. The contrast was too great. A white one followed
suit. There was something wrong; she knew not what. Finally a bronze,
brown-specked one made a faint curve come to her lips. It matched the
fur, and somehow, her face. Then she lingered with a half-shamed look
by the chest-of-drawers. Should she? Should she not? She might at any
rate take something in case; so she stuffed a long, fine lace scarf
into her muff and ran hastily downstairs.
Her advent brought a sort of breathlessness to the two young men. Ned
evaded it by saying prosaically, "You'll have to tie on your head with
something, I expect."
"I have got something," replied Aura superbly, and out came the lace
scarf. It was bewildering. All the more so when Mr. Sylvanus Smith,
looking at her with that same wistful affection, said half to himself,
"Your grandmother wore that, my dear, when she was married."
But there was no time for sentimentalities. Here was a young girl,
instinct with vitality to her very finger tips, going out for her
first ride on a motor, going out for her very first experience of the
world.
"I have never been further than this before," she said, heaving a
great sigh of content, as the car, turning almost at right angles,
sped over a bridge and curved towards the further side of the estuary.
"Everything now is new! Everything! I've never even seen the hills
this shape before. And how strange our side of the valley looks. Who
would believe that was Cwmfairnog? I don't believe I belong to it a
bit."
She pointed to a pale blue shadow among the shining hills showing
where the little valley sank to restful, sheltered peace.
"I'm sure you don't," echoed Ned joyously. "Only I don't quite know
where we belong to--unless it is everywhere."
The "we" smote on Ted's ears disagreeably as he leant over from the
back between them, while the _chauffeur_, honest man, sat immovable in
his corner as if he saw and heard nothing.
"You belong to us at present," he said laughing; "so take care you
don't smash us up, Ned--we can't afford to lose her."
She laughed back at him carelessly. That was exactly what she felt.
She was having a splendid time with both of them.
It was a drive never to be forgotten. Down here by the sea the frost
had slackened its hold, and in sheltered corners the grass was as
green as at midsummer. A robin was singing its heart out on a bramble
bough, where one pale flower showed rejoicing in the winter sunshine.
It looked colder in the sky than it was on earth, for overhead a great
white cloud drifted like an iceberg through a sea of palest blue--a
frozen-looking, chilly blue.
"Is that Plas Afon? I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Aura, as a swift turn in
the road brought them to a sheltered bay almost land-locked by a rocky
promontory covered with trees. It needed but one glance at these to
show you that here was art, not nature. But it was art mimicking
Nature in her kindest moods and bringing together from the four
corners of the earth the glories of eastern and western forests, of
the south and of the north. A few gold leaves still lingered on the
Spanish chestnuts, the blue of the noble pine formed a background for
the golden-barked willow, the silver cedar threw out its long arms
across a scarlet oak, and almost to the water's edge grew rare
conifers and blossoming shrubs.
"I believe you are afraid! I am," said Ned, steering for the portico.
"Who's afraid?" laughed Ted from the back seat, his eyes on the girl.
"Not you or I, I'll bet. We sit free of this sort of thing. Keep your
responsibilities to yourself, Ned!"
Once more Aura looked back at him and smiled brilliantly. She was not
afraid, but she felt oppressed. Yet how lovely it was! A velvet lawn
sloping away to the sea. Those unknown beautiful trees, each standing
sentinel over a portion of God's earth, and in the sheltered nooks
groups of tall grasses and hardy palms. Not a dead leaf, every
tuft of herbage in its right place. And the gravel! Aura had never
dreamt of such gravel before! Each pebble round--polished, glowing,
half-translucent in the sunshine, like an uncut gem. She felt she
could scarcely dare to walk upon the pretty things.
And it was a beautiful house too; a real fairy palace. Yes! it was
like a dream--a dream of great, of exceeding beauty. There was not a
discordant note in it. The man of whom Ned had told her, who had built
it, who had lavished a fortune on it, and had then died in faraway
Italy, leaving it to fall into the hands of Philistines, must have
had----. What must he have had! Ah! well, he must have been rather
like Ned Blackborough himself. For Plas Afon fitted Ned somehow in its
fineness, its elusiveness.
She turned her eyes to him, and flushed; for his were on hers,
thinking how Plas Afon fitted her. And in truth it did; fitted her all
the more for the flush, since she held her head higher, and followed
him with a still lighter, freer step.
"I am so glad," said Helen Tressilian coming forward. "This is Miss
Vyvyan; Aunt Em--this is Miss Aura Graham."
"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured a tall, stately, absolutely colourless
lady, who was engaged in making laborious needle-point on a tiny piece
of black lining about two inches square. A tiny reel of almost
invisible thread, a miniature pair of scissors, were also held in her
left hand. They formed her only individuality; for the rest she got up
at the right time, ate her breakfast and made appropriate breakfast
remarks, and so lived through her day doing as the rest of the world
did. But these came down with her in the morning and went to bed with
her at night, held always in her white be-ringed left hand. Perhaps
she slept with them. Anyhow they were an integral part of her waking
life. If any one, thinking to be agreeable, asked her how she was
getting on, she would smile gently, indulgently, and say that of
course such work took time.
Ned used to feel that it annihilated Time altogether, and could he
have happened on it unprotected, would for a certainty have
annihilated it. But it went with her everywhere--even in the motor.
"Something quite terrible has happened, Ned," went on Helen
Tressilian--she had given one look at Aura and been satisfied--"but
it can't be helped. The Smith-Biggs have motored over from
Aberaron--and--and--they have brought Mr. Hirsch. I sent Dr. Ramsay
out with them to show them the garden, but--but they'll have to stop
to lunch."
"They're welcome," retorted Ned with irritation; "I shall lunch in the
garden when they've left it. We"--he looked at Aura--"only eat the
fruits of the earth, you know."
"It was your cousin who asked me to lunch," began Aura gravely,
whereat Ned laughed.
"You have an appalling sense of duty," he replied. "But I give in to
it. Now, as I see Hirsch and Co. coming across the lawn, if we slip
out by the back we shall escape them till lunch-time anyhow."
Aura looked at him doubtfully. His responsibilities, which were
beginning to weigh her down, seemed to affect him not at all.
"Are you going too, Mr. Cruttenden?" asked Helen, noticing a certain
hesitation on Ted's part. In truth he was undecided. He wanted to see
Mr. Hirsch, and, at the same time, he wished to be with Aura. Of
course he could see his chief after lunch; but supposing they did not
stop to lunch?
So Ned Blackborough had the girl to himself. For a moment or two, as
he led her round by the back way through thickets of rhododendrons, he
felt triumphant, as a man does when he sees an opportunity before him.
And then, then he forgot everything in pure delight at her eager face,
in the joy of her enjoyment.
"It is the most beautiful place in the world," she cried at last, "and
this is the most beautiful thing in it."
She was on her knees beside a tuft of red bronze Tyrolean saxifrage,
out of whose close carpet of velvet the tiny silver-green scimitars of
the _iris alata_ curved round guarding its broad, purple-blue
blossoms. For they were in the winter-garden now. Not one of those
crystal palaces of palms and hot-water pipes which answer to that name
in the minds of so many. No! This was a real garden, in full air, but
tucked away from every breeze that blows in a cove giving on the sea.
Among the rocks above the small cleft of sandy beach on which the tide
lapped lazily, grew all the kindly green things innumerable which have
learnt to do without the rest of winter sleep. The winding walks edged
their narrow way through great tinted carpets of saxifrage and sedums,
and many another sturdy-leaved coverer of bare earth. Bronze and sage
and golden, brown and purple and grey, with a few blue blossoms on a
creeping veronica, a few late primroses, a few early winter aconites.
And through it, over all, was the fine scent of the winter heliotrope
that clung to the crannies of the rocks or grew lush by the little
stream, which, falling in tinkling cascades, slid along the sand into
the sea. It was such a garden as every one with patience and care
might have; which none but the very few take the trouble to plant.
There was nothing in it to tell of wealth save an old stone sphinx
jutting out by the steps which led to the tiny wedge of beach, its
plinth forming a sort of jetty, beside which a boat lay moored. That
had the measureless calm of Egypt in its eyes as it stood, backed by
the changeful sky, the changeful sea.
"I believe it sees me," added Aura, looking up from the broad open
face of the flower, her own as open, as beautiful, "and it has never
seen me before. That makes me feel less strange, here where everything
is new--and strange. It seems to me I have seen more to-day than in
all my life before. It is so curious----"
"What? To see new things?" he answered, smiling down at her. "Isn't
that the only thing worth having in life--to be able to think when you
wake, 'To-day something may come to me which never came before'--to
feel a sort of perpetual annunciation----"
She stood up suddenly, measuring him with narrowed eyes.
"I do not understand," she began.
He shook his head. "Oh yes, you do. I'm sure of it. Sit down on the
plinth there and I'll try and tell you what I mean."
So with the sphinx above her she sat and listened. It was not much he
had to say. Only the half-whimsical half-serious thoughts of a man,
who, almost without knowing it, had the seeing eye for the invisible,
the hearing ear for the inarticulate, who felt, vaguely, that the best
part of life lay beyond the boundary set to conscious life by the
majority of men.
In formulated shape it was all new to her, but something in her, she
knew not what, found it familiar, approved, and her face showed her
approval, her interest.
"I see," she said slowly, "and the message is 'fear not' I like that."
"Yes!" he replied absently, clasping his hands over one knee and
leaning back against the plinth to watch a cormorant that was coming
back from fishing beyond the bar, a solitary swift, black speck upon
the blue. "It would be good if one could get at it. We risk life every
day for what we call love or money, but we are in a blue funk about
the truth, because the truth is that neither love nor money--you know,
don't you, that I am awfully, hideously rich?"
"Ted told me you were the richest man in England."
"The devil he did!" laughed Ned. "I beg your pardon, but that wasn't
in the bond. Anyhow I'm beginning to feel as if I could with pleasure
sell all that I have, and follow--something else."
"But you have no right," began Aura, "you can't shirk your
responsibilities."
"_Et tu, Brute_," he murmured pathetically, "My dear creature! You
haven't any idea how I loathe being rich. Money doesn't buy what I
like--freedom. No! confound it, it is always getting in the way.
There!" he added resignedly as he rose, "I told you so. There is that
pampered, powdered beast of a footman whom I'm ruining body and soul
by my ridiculous claims, coming to tell us lunch is ready. And--and we
are enjoying ourselves."
He looked at her as he held out his hand to help her to rise. She gave
him hers frankly enough, but drew it away hastily as if something in
the touch of his gave her offence, and a quick frown came to her face.
"That has nothing to do with it," she replied austerely, "You have no
right to keep your guests waiting."
"If I had your sense of duty, I--I should kill that fellow," he
remarked coolly, as the footman, stopping short at a respectful
distance among the saxifrages, said in the tone of voice in which a
congregation echoes the responses in church.
"If you please, your lordship, luncheon is served."
Aura looked grave for an instant, then she laughed. She was never
quite sure whether to take Ned Blackborough _aux grands serieux_ or
not. She admired him, however, when, entering the dining-room, the
glitter and clatter of silver, the chatter and laughter of the guests,
and the consciousness that every one was looking at her to see who had
made their host so late, gave her a desire to run away. He was so
easy, so self-possessed, withal so clearly determined not to let any
one interfere with his plan, which was apparently to sit beside her.
"I beg your pardon, Helen," he said cheerfully, "Miss Graham and I
were in the winter garden. Will you sit here, Miss Graham. Ah! Lady
Smith-Biggs, so glad you've come, and how is Sir Joseph? Don't let me
disturb you, Ramsay. You fill the place better than I should. Is there
room for me by you, Aunt Em? Hullo, where's Hirsch?"
This, as he circled the table brought him to a vacant seat beside Aunt
Em; but also next to Aura to whom he said in an undertone, "They'll
hand you things you can eat."
The butler's introduction of an elaborate silver dish with the mystic
whisper, "Brown bread and butter cutlets," emphasised the remark, and
she helped herself decorously with a spoon and fork.
"Mr. Hirsch and Mr. Cruttenden went off smoking somewhere," replied
Helen, "Ah! here they come at last."
"My dear Mrs. Tressilian," exploded Mr. Hirsch in his strident voice,
"I am overwhelmed, but when one gets to talking about money----"
"There is always the devil to pay, Hirsch," put in Ned.
"Ah! my dear Blackborough, _wie gehts_. What an entrancing place. Why
don't you buy it?"
"It is not for sale," replied Ned, "and it's quite enough to hire it,
I assure you, Hirsch."
Mr. Hirsch laughed in his loud unfettered fashion.
"Ah! my dear Blackborough, you always pay too much for everything. You
are the sellers' natural prey."
Aura who had helped herself out of another silver dish to something
which the butler called _fraises a la creme en caisses_, because it
looked to her like strawberries and cream, gave a quick glance at Ned.
Paid for; yes, of course, everything must have been paid for. In an
instant all her pleasure became transmuted to gold. The very
strawberries--strawberries at Christmas! What must they not have cost?
And they had been got for her. She felt, hotly, as if she were being
bribed.
"If you will finish your lunch," came Ned's voice in an undertone, "we
can start back as soon afterwards as you choose. Yes! Hirsch," he
added out loud, "I know I'm done all round. But it amuses people, and
it doesn't hurt me. The only use of money is to get rid of it."
"I never, Mrs. Tressilian," protested Lady Smith-Biggs plaintively,
"quite understand what your cousin means."
"I don't wonder," replied Helen soothingly, then smiled to herself,
for, in truth, the lady in question seldom understood anything, but,
being the wife of a conservative manufacturer who stood for his native
town, thought it her duty to take an interest in social and political
questions. "Ned loves paradoxes, but he really hates being cheated as
much as any one."
"I only meant, Lady Smith-Biggs," put in Lord Blackborough, gravely,
"that I am quite willing to subscribe--as I am sure Sir Joseph does--to
all the great truths which underlie our commercial prosperity. That is
to say, first, that everything is worth what it will fetch, and a
trifle more for underhand percentages. Secondly, that nothing can be
called cheating in an open market. Thirdly, that truth is the affair
of the purchaser, or his creator."
"Bah! my dear Lord Blackborough," laughed Mr. Hirsch, "you would have
a world without money; it would be a pretty paradise."
"But," protested Lady Smith-Biggs again, her diamond ear-rings
twinkling--they were so magnificent that they made one forget the
redness and the fatness of the face against which they shone, "I
really do not understand. If you have no money, how can you pay your
bills?"
"I pay mine by cheque," remarked Ned with a side-glance at Aura. After
her sudden desire to escape which his aside had checked, she had
become amused, then interested, by the conversation. And now his
allusion made her flush up, then smile, for she was beginning to
realise that this curious world, in which money played so important a
part, was really the world in which she had always lived. She had not
seen the token; that was all.
"But, my dear Ned," said Miss Vyvyan placidly, "you can't pay
everything by cheque. The bank doesn't like cashing small sums. I know
when I send for my thread to Honiton--I have to send there, you know,
it is so fine," she explained to Lady Smith-Biggs, laying her hand on
the tiny black roll which, as usual, was beside her plate, "I always
have to send a postal order."
"Exactly so," breathed Lady Smith-Biggs with a sigh of relief; "so you
are wrong, Lord Blackborough. Why! even the very children have
pennies. I used to think it rather dreadful their doing so much
shopping for their mothers, but Sir Joseph says you cannot train them
too early to understand the real value of money. And I am sure he is
right, for it is quite impossible to live without it."
"That is a question which we ought to refer to Miss Graham," remarked
Ned Blackborough coolly, "I believe she has never even seen a
sixpence."
If a bomb had fallen on the lunch-table it could not have produced a
greater effect. Mr. Hirsch sat petrified, his fork halfway to his
mouth. All eyes were turned on Aura, who bore the brunt with smiles,
for there was something of pure mischief in her host's face which was
infectious. Even Ted, over the way, waited, amused.
"I believe she did, once, see a sovereign," continued Ned. "Perhaps
she will tell you what she did with it."
The girl's face dimpled with laughter. "I gave it to the cockatoo."
Dynamite could not possibly have been more disconcerting.
"The cockatoo!" echoed Mr. Hirsch automatically, as, becoming aware
that the _sole au vin blanc_ on his fork was dripping on to his
waistcoat, he dabbed blindly at the spot with his napkin. "And--and
may I ask, my dear young lady, what--what the cockatoo did with it?"
"He wouldn't eat it," said Aura.
"And so," interrupted Ted rather viciously, "it was thrown into the
stream."
Aura turned swiftly on Ned. This was news. "Did you?" she began.
"So there it lies," remarked Ned, "as the beginning of a Welsh
gold-mine. Make a prospectus out of that, Hirsch; it would be as true
as most of them, I expect."
"But I do not quite understand," protested Lady Smith-Biggs once more,
her pale blue eyes fixed vacantly on Aura. "What! you have never seen
a sixpence--how--how dreadful!"
"That is easily remedied," remarked Peter Ramsay; "I believe I have so
much in my pocket, anyhow."
"Stay a bit, Ramsay," said Lord Blackborough; "Miss Graham's ignorance
is not confined to sixpence. She is generally unacquainted with the
coin of the realm."
Mr. Hirsch's eyes were almost starting out of his head, partly in
admiration of the girl whom he now discovered to be exceedingly
beautiful. "Gott in Himmel!" he muttered, "I believe I have half a
crown an' two shillings."
"Capital!" cried Ned. "Simmonds, take the plate round, and then bring
it to Miss Graham."
"Admirable! Admirable! Blackborough, _mon cher!_ You have
imagination!" exploded Mr. Hirsch, fumbling excitedly in his pockets.
"What luck! I have a two-florin bit, and I swore at them when they
gave it me! Ah! young lady! one does not often meet one so old--a
thousand pardons, mademoiselle, but at your age one need not be so
afraid." His good-natured face was brimful of kindliness and honest
enjoyment, and Aura responded to it.
"You needn't be in the least afraid," she smiled, "I shall be
twenty-one on New Year's Day."
The information was welcome to at least two of the party, and the
others, carried away out of the conventional for the time, applauded
the confidence.
"Soh!" exclaimed Mr. Hirsch, who was now busy with coins and a silver
salver, while the butler and two footmen stood behind him sniggering.
"Aha! young lady, you began a new era; ah! we must all send you
a--what do you call _etrennes_ in English to commemorate this
extraordinary--Mein Gott! Has any one a three-penny bit?"
So with much laughter, Lady Smith-Biggs absolutely contributing from a
very small purse a whole five-shilling piece, a complete set of coins
was handed to Aura.
"With the company's compliments, Miss," said the butler.
"That ends your hours of innocence, Miss Graham," remarked Ned
Blackborough gravely, as the ladies left the room.
It did not end Aura's ordeal, however, for, once in the drawing-room,
Lady Smith-Biggs begged to be introduced in form.
"Oh! I am sorry," said Aura innocently, reaching up to the good lady's
outstretched waggling hand; "but I always shake hands lower down. Is
that the right way?"
The question verged on the impossible, since Lady Smith-Biggs lived in
the highest circles. But she ignored it, and all her good breeding did
not prevent her descending on the girl with a perfect cataract of
questions. Where did she live, who was her father, had she any
brothers or sisters?
Aura began to grow restive.
"No!" she replied shortly; then fearing she had been too incisive,
added, "I have often wished I had. I should have liked them."
Helen Tressilian coming to the rescue looked at her with soft
approving eyes. "They would have liked you, I'm sure. I expect you are
very fond of children."
The girl turned to her impulsively. "Yes--very! You don't know how
often I've wished that I had a baby."
It was worse than the sixpence. Lady Smith-Biggs gasped.
Her matronly breast heaved. She cast a nervous glance towards her
daughter, who was providentially occupied in looking at Miss Vyvyan's
lace-work.
"My dear," she said majestically, "you haven't a mother, so you'll
excuse me telling you that we don't say that sort of thing in
society."
Aura blushed a furious red.
"Why not?" she asked, and her voice had a militant ring in it.
"O Ned, Ned!" whispered Helen Tressilian to her cousin, as at that
moment the gentleman entered the room, "for Heaven's sake take her
away from us soon or she will be spoilt!"
He grasped the situation in a moment. "I'm afraid we must be starting,
Miss Graham. We are going to row you across the estuary, and then we
can walk home over the hills. You have never been in a boat, have
you?"
"No!" said poor Aura, suddenly feeling inclined to cry. It seemed to
her as if she knew nothing and had seen nothing.