‘When you meet Dinah you will see that she is a woman to care little for the common run of morning callers.’ ‘I shall endeavour, just the same, to make her care for me.’ Marjorie’s tones were icy, a swell of curiously mixed feeling was in her breast. ‘Endeavour will not be needed. I never made too sure,’ said Geff modestly, ‘that you would pay this visit. But I know that Dinah, in her heart, is more than prepared to bid you welcome.’ He rose, visibly reluctant, from the cool greensward. Then, with a sense that some subtle, intangible change had crept into his relations with his pupil, Geff prepared to take his leave. But perilous stuff had yet to be dislodged from Marjorie Bartrand’s conscience. She would not call upon the wife while that bit of Spanish ribbon, a loan made in a moment of foolish high spirits, remained unchallenged in the husband’s possession. ‘I hope you have taken care of something I lent you, sir. A piece of coloured ribbon tied round those flowers I sent, the first evening grandpapa and I had the pleasure of knowing you, to Mrs. Arbuthnot.’ ‘To Mrs. Arbuthnot! This is rough on a man,’ cried Geff. ‘Why, Miss Bartrand, you must have forgotten. Those flowers were given to me.’ ‘Don’t make too certain of that.’ ‘But I am certain. I can see you as you stood in the strip of moonlight by the water-lane, wishing me good-night. Your last words were, “the flowers are for yourself--your better self.”’ ‘The ribbon, at least, was given to no one,’ retorted Marjorie, changing colour under his gaze. ‘It was lent to hinder you from breaking your neck. You meant to climb the Gros Nez cliffs if you could. To do that a real good Guernsey man needs his hands, both of them, and I thought it a pity----’ ‘The real good Guernsey night should be disfigured by a stupid stranger leaving the world too tragically. I thank you heartily,’ went on Geff, as the girl blushed deeper and deeper. ‘I measured the extent of your sympathy to an inch at the time.’ A ring of absolute independence was in his voice; a suspicion lurked there, too, of hardly restrained laughter. For the situation was taking hold of him. Let us see, thought Geoffrey, in this feather-light matter of keeping or not keeping a morsel of sash ribbon, how far the small shrew could be tamed? Let us see which of the two should fitly, in the end, be styled conqueror? So he thought: by no means forecasting that this feather-light matter of keeping a morsel of sash ribbon might be the pivot on which his life’s fortunes should one day turn. CHAPTER XI ‘DODO’S DESPAIR’ ‘My sympathy, I believe, was rightly bestowed,’ said Marjorie frigidly. ‘I would not see the poorest wandering pedlar start for the Gros Nez cliffs without helping him to the extent I helped you. Even a pedlar might have a wife at home, sir. A foolish, fond creature, shedding tears of anxiety for him in his absence.’ The side-thrust did not seem to scathe Geoffrey’s conscience as it should have done.