The delighted smile came at last, as Margaret looked up in gratitude at her kind mother. "Oh, thank you so much, mummy!" And she darted off with an unusual gleefulness. Bernadette, her part of kind mother admirably played, looked across at Arthur. He was so crestfallen that she could not forbear from laughing. His scheme a failure, his sacrifice thwarted! The father sulked; the child, with an innocent but fatal sincerity, repelled advances. Things looked bad for the unifiers! Indeed one of them had put her foot neatly through the plan devised by the other. Judith knew about the proposed excursion; clearly she had not thought it possible that Margaret would be asked to join, or she would never have arranged the visit to Mrs. Beard. "We're unfortunate in meeting a strong counter-attraction, Arthur. We've overrated the charms of our society, I'm afraid." Though Bernadette laughed, she spoke in dry tones, and her look was malicious. Arthur felt foolish. When once the scheme was a failure, it came to look futile, hopeless--and terribly obvious. Bernadette saw through it, of course; her look told him that. "Oh, well, I suppose rabbits are----!" he murmured feebly. "Rabbits--and Judith!" She rose and went to the window. "I rather think it's going to rain." Then after a pause she went on, "I think you're rather a conventionally minded person, Arthur." He attempted no defence. She had seen through the scheme--oh, quite clearly! She was vexed too; she was frowning now, as she stood by the window. "You can't have the same tastes and--and likings as people have just because you happen to be some relation or other to them. It's no use trying." She gave an impatient little shake of her head. She had not altogether liked the child's being asked; she liked no better the child's being unwilling to come. Little as she had wanted Margaret's company, it was not flattering to be postponed in her regard to rabbits--and Judith. Still, if the child did prefer rabbits and Judith--well, there was the comforting reflection that she could always have rabbits at a very moderate cost, and that there was no reason to apprehend that she would be deprived of Judith. What she valued least was the thing she was most likely to lose, as matters stood at present. Hurt vanity wrested the little girl's innocent sincerity into an argument for Bernadette's secret purpose. "I don't like the look of that cloud. I'm sure it's going to rain." Arthur glanced out of the window in a perfunctory way; he felt that he would have to accept Bernadette's view of the weather prospects, however subjective that view might be.