‘You are looking forward to a long stay in the island, I _hope_, Mrs. Arbuthnot.’ At the italicised verb Dinah’s eyes turned on her companion with a vague distrust. Then she changed colour. A rose-flush, vivid as sunset on snow, overspread her face. For she thought of Gaston. ‘If you are a friend of my husband’s, I can understand your wishing to keep us here.’ There was a smile on her lips. The stiffness of her manner began visibly to relax. Lord Rex for a moment was taken aback. Then he plucked up heart of grace. To see a married woman blush like a school-girl at the mention of her husband’s name was a new and puzzling spectacle to him. He could scarcely flatter his vanity that he, personally, was receiving encouragement. Still, Dinah had smiled. And with the burthen of conversation-making resting heavily on him, he was glad enough to follow any cue that might present itself. ‘Friend? I should think so! Best fellow in the world, Arbuthnot--and a man of genius, too; good-all-round sort of man. Never heard a Briton sing French songs as he does. Rather proud of my own accent.’ As Lord Rex progressed in confidence his speech grew more and more elliptic. ‘Sent to Paris in my infancy. Brought up by the Jesuits--there were Jesuits in those days, you know--till I went to Eton. But Arbuthnot puts me in the shade, ra-_ther_.’ ‘Your lordship was brought up by the Jesuits!’ Side by side with many wholesomer qualities, Dinah had inherited not a few of her yeoman forefathers’ prejudices. At the word ‘Jesuit’ she regarded Lord Rex with an interest that had in it almost the tenderer element of pity. ‘I was. You look doubtful, you don’t think the fathers could give one such a Parisian roll of the “r” as your husband’s?’ ‘Of that I’m ignorant, my lord. I am no French scholar. I thought of the Jesuits’ fearful underminded dealings.’ Dinah gave a half shudder in the warm sunshine. ‘I thought of the doctrines they must have instilled into you.’ Underminded! From what sect or denomination could Arbuthnot have taken his handsome wife? That Dinah was a rustic ‘mixed up with the great bucolic interests,’ Lord Rex felt certain. The Devonshire burr, the staid, shy, village manner betrayed her. What were her tenets? What sort of conscience had she? A Puritanical conscience, of course, but of what shade, what dimensions? He harked warily back upon the safe subject of Gaston’s songs. ‘Arbuthnot was singing to us magnificently last night. He was in his best form. Faure himself could never have given “A vingt ans” in grander style. And then he was so well accompanied. The accompaniment is half the battle in “A vingt ans.’”