Teresa was announced. She had discarded her coat and appeared in a short dark skirt, and a white blouse, transparent at the neck, and displaying a goodly length of bare brown arms. Her feet looked disproportionately large in walking shoes, and there was a hint of the provincial in her gait. One descried at a glance that it was not often her lot to make an entrance into so stately a room. Cassandra rose to greet her with an involuntary feeling of commiseration. A few minutes before she had come near grudging the girl her good fortune, now at the sight of her, her heart melted with pity. So gauche, so raw! The heavy looks, the reddened arms. Cassandra’s fastidious eye took in the blemishes at a glance, and the feminine in her rose on the girl’s behalf. She placed her on the corner of the sofa, nearest the softly tinted light, moved a table to her side, with a deft hand twitched away a dark cushion and substituted one of a vivid blue. The effect was transforming, for once the dark skirt was hidden from sight the filmy blouse became at once dainty and appropriate, while the softened light showed to advantage the gleam in the fair, coiled hair, the youthful pink and white of the complexion. Cassandra glanced at Peignton to see if he appreciated the picture; and discovered him leaning forward, looking into the girl’s face with pleasure and admiration. Teresa was smiling back, and showing her large white teeth. Cassandra squeezed her lips into a tight little knot, and told herself she was very pleased. But how foolish they looked!

Bernard came in, and sat himself down with deliberation. He enjoyed afternoon tea, insisted on having a table to himself, and a supply of hot buttered toast. Hardly a day passed that he did not ask for a second supply, and give instructions as to liberality with the butter. He drank three cups of tea, and helped himself largely to cream. And then he wondered that he grew stout! Cassandra nibbled daintily at minute wafers of bread, and the girl on the sofa ate sweet cakes with youthful relish.

“What’s the news, Miss Mallison?” Bernard asked between his mouthfuls of toast. It was a question which he never failed to ask, and Teresa Mallison’s replies never failed to evoke the expected amusement. She believed so implicitly that he was interested in the doings of that dead-alive little hole, and brought out her little items with such an air of importance.

“The Vicar has asked me to decorate the chancel for Easter.”

“Don’t you do it! Lots of trouble, and nobody pleased. Let someone else take that job.”

“Oh, but”—Teresa looked shocked—“I want to! It’s an honour. I’ve only done the finials before. But it needs lots of flowers. I wondered if...”

“I’ll bet you did! They always do.” Bernard laughed good-naturedly. “All right, Miss Teresa; you shall have them. Someone has them every year, and I’d sooner give them to you than most. Tell Dawes what you want, and I’ll see that he remembers. And if you want him to help—”

“Oh, thanks!” Teresa’s cheeks showed a deeper colour. “I have some helpers. Mr Peignton has promised.”

“That’s right, Peignton! Make yourself useful.” Bernard’s smile was so significant, that Teresa made haste to give the conversation a turn.

“The Martin Beverleys have come home.”

“They have, have they? That’s the author fellow who married the heiress, who was not an heiress, because she gave it all up to marry him. Chucked away,—how much was it? Fifty thousand a year?”

“Thirty!”

“Ah well, thirty’s good enough! He didn’t seem to me, the few times I’ve met him, exactly cheap at the price. Good-looking enough in a fashion, and plays a fair game, but a stiff, reserved kind of beggar. Takes himself too seriously for my taste. They tell me he writes good books.”

Teresa waxed eloquent in favour of the local celebrity.

“Oh, beautiful! He is one of the best authors. The last one was the best of all. It’s run through several editions. You ought to read it, Mr Raynor.”

“Can’t stick novels!” declared Bernard, who was never known to read a line beyond the morning papers. “Can’t understand how anyone can when they’ve passed the cub stage. And as to writing them—Good Lord! Fancy that old solemn sides Beverley writing an impassioned love scene! Beats me how he manages to do it.”

“It wouldn’t, if you knew Mrs Beverley!” Teresa said sagely. Her blue eyes brightened, she drew a long, eloquent breath. “She is—adorable!”

The men laughed. Cassandra looked up with a dawning of interest.

“She was Grizel Dundas, niece of that terrible old woman. I’ve heard of her often, but we never met. I’ve met Mr Beverley and his sister, that handsome girl who went to India: they have been here to several garden parties. He is certainly rather stiff, but one feels from his books that he must be worth knowing. It’s interesting to know a man for whom a woman has given up so much, but still more interesting to meet the woman. Tell us, Teresa, what she is like!”

But Teresa wrinkled her brows, and looked vague and perplexed. She could enthuse, but it appeared that she could not describe.

“Er—it’s so difficult! She’s like no one else. I’ve never met anyone in the least like her.”

Cassandra put the invariable question:

“Is she pretty?”

“Oh, lovely!” Teresa cried. “At least—sometimes! She changes. I’ve heard people call her plain. But you hardly think of her looks. She’s so—” Again she hesitated, and became lost in confusion. Cassandra probed once more.

“So—what? Teresa, do please be definite! I’m interested in this Mrs Beverley. If she’s really plain, it’s so clever of her to look lovely. If she is lovely, it’s so stupid of her to look plain. What is she so—?”

“Funny!” gasped Teresa, and giggled triumphantly. “Yes, she is funny! She says funny things. In a funny way. She is not a bit like—”

“Teresa—what?”

“Chumley,” said Teresa, and involuntarily Cassandra heaved a sigh of relief.

“Lovely. Plain. Funny. Not a bit like Chumley.” Cassandra noted each point with an infinitesimal nod; into her eyes there danced a spark of light. “This sounds exciting! I shall call upon Mrs Beverley.”

“Thankful to hear it!” Raynor grumbled. “You ought to call a lot more. People expect it. It would please ’em, and be good for you. You shut yourself up, and get hipped. A woman needs gossip, to let off steam.”

Cassandra’s light laugh carried off the personality of the remark, but after the laugh came a sigh, a ghost of a sigh of whose passing her husband and Teresa remained serenely unconscious. Only Peignton heard it, and his eyes turned to rest upon her face.

There was in his glance an intentness, an understanding which gave the impression of barriers thrust aside. Cassandra was startled by it, and discomposed. She had reached the stage when she did not expect to be understood. That such a stranger as this man should have read her thoughts seemed at the moment a deliberate offence. She lowered her lids with an impulse of self-defence.

“It is five o’clock,” she said shortly. “Bernard, if you can tear yourself from buttered toast, shall we begin bridge?”