"Did you arrange this meeting, mother?" he asked, as he opened the parlour door for her. "Didn't I tell you," she smiled, "that I have to find things to do nowadays?" "I like the notion of your turning matchmaker. Pray, is this kind of meeting a regular occurrence?" "I have very few luxuries, Griff.--Not that it is the least good in the world. Gabriel seems always to be falling between two stools. He can't work properly, because he is in love with the girl, and he won't speak out like a man, because he is not sure yet whether she is a temptation of the flesh or not. You men--you men! If only you understood what a true woman's love is worth." "The lassie would have him--eh, mother?" "The lassie, sir, will wait till she is asked," retorted the mother. When Griff reached Gorsthwaite that evening, it struck him that something was amiss with Kate. His late uneasiness about his mother had sharpened his eyes, and he was awake to the restlessness in Kate's movements. From time to time, too, she looked wistfully at him, and seemed on the point of speaking. More than all, he noted that she was disposed to be lavish of caresses, in a way that fitted ill with her wonted undemonstrative strength. "What ails you, wife?" he ventured once. "Nothing--nothing at all, dear. Why do you ask?" "You are so unlike yourself. Have I left you alone too much lately? Say the word, Katey, and I'll give up the farming, and--and the horse. They take me away a good deal between them." "Nonsense, Griff. You are going to give up nothing at all, except your foolish suspicions of me. I am the happiest woman in the world at this moment." Alas for his inexperience! In that curious, half-hysterical assertion of happiness, he might have read all that she longed to tell him. But he missed it, and went on to talk of Dereham's coming on the morrow. "He is rather fastidious, you know," laughed Griff; "what can we give him to eat? Luckily we have a brace of grouse ready for cooking. How would an omelette be?" "I can't make them," protested Kate, vaguely uneasy at the mention of Dereham's fastidiousness. "But I can--beauties! It is high time you learned; I'll give you a lesson in the morning. Oh, yes, we shall manage famously! Tell the cook, wifey, that she can have a morning off to-morrow, because I mean to turn her kitchen upside down." "Indeed, I shall tell her nothing of the kind. I don't trust you, Griff--you talk too glibly about it." Griff stroked her cheek playfully. "You think that omelette will turn out like the women I used to paint--half-cooked inside, and dried to a cinder outside? Well, we shall see."