‘You--and I! Does the expression displease you, Miss Bartrand?’ ‘If you have any intention of remaining, you had better take out your pipe at once, Mr. Arbuthnot.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because an idle man, his feet dangling over a ditch, and not smoking, would be a spectacle too wretched to contemplate.’ ‘The description may be worse than the fact. I am idle. My feet dangle over a ditch. I am not smoking. I was never less wretched in my life.’ ‘I spoke of such a person as an object of painful contemplation.’ ‘Is the spectacle painful to you at this moment? Speak frankly.’ ‘I--I only wished to let you know that you might smoke, if you chose.’ ‘Thanks! I would rather do nothing to alter my present state of feeling.’ And then they came to a full stop: a rather marked one. Marjorie spoke first. ‘The charm of a spot like this’--she brought out each word with incision--‘is its solitude.’ ‘_Solitude à deux._ The French have such an expression, have they not?’ Geff Arbuthnot asked the question, pronouncing his _eu_ vilely. ‘“Solitude a-doo!” I am hopelessly stupid,’ said Marjorie, holding her head aloft. ‘“A-doo!” Is it meant for a farewell, or what? I really do not see the drift of the idiom--a quotation, perhaps, from one of the classic authors?’ Geoffrey was sensible that she had never been more dangerous than at this juncture, mutinous pride struggling with merriment on her clear girlish face, as she turned his terrible French accent into ridicule. He was sensible, also, of a new, an unexpected pleasure in being laughed at by her. ‘Were you enjoying your solitude (without the “doo”) truly, and thoroughly, when I disturbed you?’ ‘Thoroughly, no. I had not got the flavour of folly enough out of my mouth for that. You relished, I hope, the exquisite wit we English people showed in the church, Mr. Arbuthnot? You appreciated the fun of wounding simple beliefs by depositing our Oxford Street finery among the real piteous crutches before La Delivrande? And to think that young women,’ exclaimed Marjorie, waxing warm, ‘are stigmatised, in masses, as frivolous! How can they be anything _but_ frivolous with such examples before them?’ ‘Let us cast up both columns of the account. Would a man--no, as we are talking of Lord Rex Basire, let us say would a foolish youth--display his foolishness among a bevy of pretty girls, unless they were ready to give him smiles as an encouragement?’ ‘I am sure Mrs. Arbuthnot would not be among the smilers. Her beautiful face looked so good and calm, when the rest of us stood giggling there before the altar.’ ‘My cousin is serious--a little over-serious always.’ Geoffrey Arbuthnot gazed attentively at the horizon as he made this remark.