With what honesty did she now scorn all human creatures of the Tredennis stamp! How loyally would she put herself forward as Dinah’s friend; yes, although she must forfeit the reading of mathematics and classics with Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot as her reward! ‘You have not been here long enough to see much of the island. Of course you are fond of the country?’ ‘Well, I was country born and bred. Real country folk, my husband says, set less store upon green fields and hedgerows than the town people.’ ‘But you like being out of doors? You will walk or drive with me sometimes? I have a pair of Welsh ponies, capital at scrambling up and down our Guernsey lanes.’ ‘You are very kind, Miss Bartrand, but I can’t quite give an answer. You see I should have to speak to Mr. Arbuthnot.’ Poor Dinah coloured with actual shame at the proposal. ‘Now, to-day. Why are you not enjoying yourself with the rest of the world at the show? Guernsey roses, I can tell you, are worth looking at.’ ‘I asked Geff, in joke, of course, to take me,’ Dinah answered. ‘But he was not polite enough to say “Yes.”’ ‘Will you come with me?’ cried Marjorie. ‘As I drove in from Tintajeux I was getting my courage up all the way to ask you this. I have no chaperon, and now that I am seventeen, nearly a grown-up woman, the old ladies tell my grandfather it is improper I should go about without one. I, who know the island like a cat! You would be doing an act of charity by coming with me to the Arsenal.’ Dinah’s face grew irresolute at this piece of special pleading. She crossed to the window, and looked with wistful eyes up the street. She recalled the group which had passed along a quarter of an hour before. She heard Gaston’s voice again, saw the tiny primrose hands clasped round his throat. She thought of Linda Thorne’s rainbow-coloured flounces, and of Linda Thorne herself. ‘I should like to go.’ The truth broke from her after a minute more of hesitation. ‘I was feeling duller than usual when you came, Miss Bartrand, and I do like a flower-show above all things. We used to go to the Tiverton shows when my sister and I were girls. Uncle William, who lived bailiff at Lord Lufton’s, would take us when the gentlepeople were gone. But that,’ Dinah interrupted herself hastily, ‘was different. We were with Uncle William, we were in our place. I should not be in my place with you. Perhaps you are too young, Miss Bartrand, to see this. My husband is at the Arsenal with his friends, and----’ ‘Wherever a husband goes is a place for his wife, according to my ideas of matrimony,’ said Marjorie, in a careless tone, but with her veracious face aflame. ‘I will not hear another excuse. It will be a curiously pleasant surprise for Mr. Arbuthnot when he sees you in my society.’ ‘The ladies are dressed so elegantly,’ objected Dinah, at the same time moving towards the door. ‘And I never wear smart things.’