She sat after that without speaking on his knee, his arms round her, her head on his breast.

She was thinking.

Try as she might to empty herself of everything except acceptance and love, she found that only her body was controllable. That lay quite passive in Wemyss's arms; but her mind refused to lie passive, it would think. Strange how tightly one's body could be held, how close to somebody else's heart, and yet one wasn't anywhere near the holder. They locked you up in prisons that way, holding your body tight and thinking they had got you, and all the while your mind—you—was as free as the wind and the sunlight. She couldn't help it, she struggled hard to feel as she had felt when she woke up and saw him sitting near her; but the way he had refused to be friends, the complete absence of any readiness in him to meet her, not half, nor even a quarter, but a little bit of the way, had for the first time made her consciously afraid of him.

She was afraid of him, and she was afraid of herself in relation to him. He seemed outside anything of which she had experience. He appeared not to be—he anyhow had not been that day—generous. There seemed no way, at any point, by which one could reach him. What was he really like? How long was it going to take her really to know him? Years? And she herself,—she now knew, now that she had made their acquaintance, that she couldn't at all bear scenes. Any scenes. Either with herself, or in her presence with other people. She couldn't bear them while they were going on, and she couldn't bear the exhaustion of the long drawn-out making up at the end. And she not only didn't see how they were to be avoided—for no care, no caution would for ever be able to watch what she said, or did, or looked, or, equally important, what she didn't say, or didn't do, or didn't look—but she was afraid, afraid with a most dismal foreboding, that some day after one of them, or in the middle of one of them, her nerve would give out and she would collapse. Collapse deplorably; into just something that howled and whimpered.

This, however, was horrible. She mustn't think like this. Sufficient unto the day, she thought, trying to make herself smile, is the whimpering thereof. Besides, she wouldn't whimper, she wouldn't go to pieces, she would discover a way to manage. Where there was so much love there must be a way to manage.

He had pulled her blouse back, and was kissing her shoulder and asking her whose very own wife she was. But what was the good of love-making if it was immediately preceded or followed or interrupted by anger? She was afraid of him. She wasn't in this kissing at all. Perhaps she had been afraid of him unconsciously for a long while. What was that abjectness on the honeymoon, that anxious desire to please, to avoid offending, but fear? It was love afraid; afraid of getting hurt, of not going to be able to believe whole-heartedly, of not going to be able—this was the worst—to be proud of its beloved. But now, after her experiences to-day, she had a fear of him more separate, more definite, distinct from love. Strange to be afraid of him and love him at the same time. Perhaps if she didn't love him she wouldn't be afraid of him. No, she didn't think she would then, because then nothing that he said would reach her heart. Only she couldn't imagine that. He was her heart.

'What are you thinking of?' asked Wemyss, who having finished with her shoulder noticed how quiet she was.

She could tell him truthfully; a moment sooner and she couldn't have. 'I was thinking,' she said, 'that you are my heart.'

'Take care of your heart then, won't you?' said Wemyss.

'We both will,' said Lucy.

'Of course,' said Wemyss. 'That's understood. Why state it?'

She was silent a minute. Then she said, 'Isn't it nearly tea-time?'

'By Jove, yes,' he exclaimed, pulling out his watch. 'Why, long past. I wonder what that fool—get up, little Love—' he brushed her off his lap—'I'll ring and find out what she means by it.'

Lucy was sorry she had said anything about tea. However, he didn't keep his finger on the bell this time, but rang it normally. Then he stood looking at his watch.

She put her arm through his. She longed to say, 'Please don't scold her.'

'Take care,' he said, his eyes on his watch. 'Don't shake me——'

She asked what he was doing.

'Timing her,' he said. 'Sh—sh—don't talk. I can't keep count if you talk.'

She became breathlessly quiet and expectant. She listened anxiously for the sound of footsteps. She did hope Lizzie would come in time. Lizzie was so nice,—it would be dreadful if she got a scolding. Why didn't she come? There—what was that? A door going somewhere. Would she do it? Would she?

Running steps came along the passage outside. Wemyss put his watch away. 'Five seconds to spare,' he said. 'That's the way to teach them to answer bells,' he added with satisfaction.

'Did you ring, sir?' inquired Lizzie, opening the door.

'Why is tea late?'

'It's in the library, sir.'

'Kindly attend to my question. I asked why tea was late.'

'It wasn't late to begin with, sir,' said Lizzie.

'Be so good as to make yourself clear.'

Lizzie, who had felt quite clear, here became befogged. She did her best, however. 'It's got late through waiting to be 'ad, sir,' she said.

'I'm afraid I don't follow you. Do you?' he asked, turning to Lucy.

She started. 'Yes,' she said.

'Really. Then you are cleverer than I am,' said Wemyss.

Lizzie at this—for she didn't want to make any more trouble for the young lady—made a further effort to explain. 'It was punctual in the library, sir, at 'alf-past four if you'd been there to 'ave it. The tea was punctual, sir, but there wasn't no one to 'ave it.'

'And pray by whose orders was it in the library?'

'I couldn't say, sir. Chesterton——'

'Don't put it on to Chesterton.'

'I was thinking,' said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the parlourmaid and didn't take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, 'I was thinking p'raps Chesterton knew. I don't do the tea, sir.'

'Send Chesterton,' said Wemyss.

Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous little movement, stooped and picked up Wuthering Heights, which was still lying face downward on the floor.

'Yes,' said Wemyss. 'I like the way you treat books.'

She put it back on its shelf. 'I went to sleep, and it fell down,' she said. 'Everard,' she went on quickly, 'I must go and get a handkerchief. I'll join you in the library.'

'I'm not going into the library. I'm going to have tea here. Why should I have tea in the library?'

'I only thought as it was there——'

'I suppose I can have tea where I like in my own house?'

'But of course. Well, then, I'll go and get a handkerchief and come back here.'

'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'

'But I—I want a handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.

'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.

She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It was Chesterton.

'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.

'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said Chesterton.

'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by myself.'

This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete. She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.

But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.

'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in difficulties.

'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute—don't be in such a hurry, please. How long has it been made?'

'Since half-past four, sir.'

'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you will cut fresh bread and butter.'

'Yes sir.'

'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to think fit.'

'Yes sir.'

She waited.

He waved.

She went.

'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter. 'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set? Aren't they a set, little Love?'

'I—don't know,' said Lucy nervously.

'You don't know!'

'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just come?'

'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying——'

'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and wondering.'

'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'

'Yes. But where's the place?'

'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'

'You mean she painted it?'

'I daresay. She was always painting.'

Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into the warmth and sunshine, further and further away....

It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,—a thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this. It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.

The long wall opposite the fireplace had nothing at all on its sand-coloured surface from the door to the window except a tall narrow looking-glass in a queerly-carved black frame, and the picture. But how that one picture glowed. What glorious weather they were having in it! It wasn't anywhere in England, she was sure. It was a brilliant, sunlit place, with a lot of almond trees in full blossom,—an orchard of them, apparently, standing in grass that was full of little flowers, very gay little flowers, of kinds she didn't know. And through the open door in the wall there was an amazing stretch of hot, vivid country. It stretched on and on till it melted into an ever so far away lovely blue. There was an effect of immense spaciousness, of huge freedom. One could feel oneself running out into it with one's face to the sun, flinging up one's arms in an ecstasy of release, of escape....

'It's somewhere abroad,' she said, after a silence.

'I daresay,' said Wemyss.

'Used you to travel much?' she asked, still examining the picture, fascinated.

'She refused to.'

'She refused to?' echoed Lucy, turning round.

She looked at him wonderingly. That seemed not only unkind of Vera, but extraordinarily—yes, energetic. The exertion required for refusing Everard something he wanted was surely enormous, was surely greater than any but the most robust-minded wife could embark upon. She had had one small experience of what disappointing him meant in that question of Christmas, and she hadn't been living with him then, and she had had all the nights to recover in; yet the effect of that one experience had been to make her give in at once when next he wanted something, and it was because of last Christmas that she was standing married in that room instead of being still, as both she and her Aunt Dot had intended, six months off it.

'Why did she refuse?' she asked, wondering.

Wemyss didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, 'I was going to say you had better ask her, but you can't very well do that, can you.'

Lucy stood looking at him. 'Yes,' she said, 'she does seem extraordinarily near, doesn't she. This room is full——'

'Now Lucy I'll have none of that. Come here.'

He held out his hand. She crossed over obediently and took it.

He pulled her close and ruffled her hair. He was in high spirits again. His encounters with the servants had exhilarated him.

'Who's my duddely-umpty little girl?' he asked. 'Tell me who's my duddely-umpty little girl. Quick. Tell me——' And he caught her round the waist and jumped her up and down.

Chesterton, bringing in the tea, arrived in the middle of a jump.