‘Yes; we had quite a chamber concert. A lot of rehearsing that accompanying business seems to want! Hardly ever drop in at The Bungalow of an afternoon without finding them at the piano.’ Dinah knew a moment’s cruel pain. There was a proud, hurt expression on her face. She stopped short, involuntarily. Then: ‘It would take much rehearsal,’ she said, ‘before I should play well enough to accompany Mr. Arbuthnot in public. But Mrs. Thorne seems clever nearly in everything. I wish I had her talents.’ And she resumed her walk, and began to speak--the village shyness thawing fast away--about the flowers, and the music, and the people. It became clear as daylight to Lord Rex Basire that his society was duly valued. CHAPTER XV A LOVE-LETTER When Gaston and Marjorie approached the refreshment stall they saw a picture which many a genre artist, in ink or oils, might have been glad to study. For there outside the tent stood Dinah Arbuthnot, fair and flushed. She and Lord Rex were eating ices, as Gaston, the materialist, predicted. The western light shone on Dinah’s bright hair. It touched the rose she wore, and the outline of her lips and chin. Lord Rex, dutifully attentive, held her sunshade. An Archdeaconess with surroundings of inferior female clergy loomed large on the horizon. Nearer at hand was Linda Thorne, patiently enduring long stories of the tiger-slaying Major’s, while her eyes and ears were elsewhere. Sarnian society generally, in dubious groups of twos and threes, looked on. It was Dinah’s first step across the border of a new world. Gaston Arbuthnot seized the points of the situation at a glance. He played the part that fell to him with acumen. Towards Dinah his manner was simply irreproachable. So thought Marjorie, no over-lenient judge; so, from afar, thought Linda Thorne. It were premature to hint at any forecasting of storm in Dinah’s own hot heart! He insisted upon supporting his wife’s plate while she finished her ice. He contrived to bring her and Linda so far into friendly juxtaposition that at parting a chilly handshake was exchanged between these ladies. But he also was true to his colours. He had come to the rose-show in Mrs. Thorne’s society; in her society he remained. The last glimpse Marjorie got of her new friends revealed a perspective of Linda with sprightly energy pointing out distant roses to Mr. Arbuthnot, while Dinah walked slowly homeward from the Arsenal gates, Lord Rex at her side.