‘About me--always the same story!’ cried Dinah, uneasily. ‘Why should people talk of us? What is there in my life, or in Gaston’s, that need arouse so much curiosity?’ ‘Shall I answer as your friend, Lord Rex, would do?’ ‘Answer truly, Geff, not like Lord Rex Basire, but like yourself.’ ‘Why should the good people of Guernsey talk about you, do you ask? Because, Mrs. Arbuthnot, even in this country of fair faces, yours may have gained the reputation of being the fairest.’ The speech would have fitted Lord Rex better. Geff was sensible in the darkness that his cheek reddened. ‘The fairest!’ echoed poor Dinah, petulantly. ‘Oh, I sicken of the very word “fair.” Shades of hair or of eyes, a white skin, a straight profile, how can people think twice of these trivial things? The woman best worth speaking about in Guernsey or elsewhere should be she, not with the fairest, but the happiest face.’ Her own, certainly, was not happy to-night. Growing accustomed to the parlour’s darkness, fitfully broken by a reflected light from one of the garden lamps outside, Geff could note her exceeding pallor. He could note, also, that Dinah Arbuthnot’s eyes revealed no trace of tear-shedding, that a look rather of newly-stirred interest, of awakening excitement, was in their depths. ‘And you have spent your evening not only without Gaston, but without cross-stitch? It is a fresh experience,’ he told her gravely, ‘for you to be idle.’ ‘I read until the light went--don’t you see--I have got hold of a book of yours? A book of verses that I did not understand when you tried to read it aloud to me at Lesser Cheriton.’ Ah, how the old name, spoken by her tongue, stabbed him always! Geoffrey Arbuthnot bent his face above the volume in Dinah’s hand. ‘“Robert Browning.” But for my bad reading, you ought to have liked these poems four years ago.’ ‘I think not, Geff. Uneducated people can like only where they feel. And in those young days’--oh, unconsciously cruel Dinah!--‘I felt so little. But I have an object now in learning. I want to learn on all subjects, out of books as well as from life. That reminds me of something I had to say to you, Geff. Lord Rex Basire was calling on me this afternoon.’ ‘Lord Rex Basire was calling on you the greater part of yesterday.’ ‘And I took upon myself to accept an invitation for you. There will be a picnic party on Wednesday. It is some yachting expedition to the French coast, got up by the officers of the regiment, to which you will be asked----’ ‘But to which I shall certainly not go. I can get as far out to sea as I like with the fisher people. Wednesday is one of my busiest days.’ ‘Miss Bartrand will be invited, too, if you are thinking of her.’ ‘Miss Bartrand can do as she chooses. I have more important work than my two hours’ reading at Tintajeux.’ ‘If I ask you, Geff, will you refuse?’