"We've done excellently since you went away. Of course we've been upset about this horrible business, but----" "Otherwise you've done very well?" he smiled. "Oh, yes, very!" "Since I went away?" "Yes, since you went away," Christine repeated. "Perhaps it's not a very good thing for me to come back?" "We can hardly banish you from your own house." The concession was grudging. Grantley laughed, and the tone of his laugh brought her eyes sharply round to his face. "You seem very cheerful," she remarked with an accusing air. "No, I'm not that exactly; but I've got an idea--and that brightens one up a bit, you know." "Any change does that," Christine admitted waspishly. "I saw John for a minute. He looked a bit worried. Does he complain?" "He hasn't complained to me." "Oh, then it's all right, I suppose. And he says the business is all right, anyhow. How's the boy?" "As merry and jolly as he can be." "And Sibylla?" "Yes, Sibylla too, as merry as possible." "They both have been, you mean?" "Yes, of course I do." "While I've been away?" "Yes, while you've been away." Grantley laughed again. Christine looked at him in dawning wonder. She had expected nothing from this drive but a gloom deepening--or at least a constraint increasing--with every yard they came nearer to Milldean. But there was something new. With some regret she recognised that her acidity, her harping on "Since you went away," had not been the best prelude to questioning or much of an invitation to confidence; and it had, moreover, failed in its primary purpose of annoying Grantley by its implied comment on his conduct. Her voice grew softer, and, with one of her coaxing little tricks, she edged herself closer to his side. "Any good news among all the bad, Grantley?" "There's no good news yet," said he. She caught at his last word. "Yet? Yet, Grantley?" "I'm not going to talk any more. That off-horse is a young 'un, and----" "It's something to have a 'yet' in life again," she half whispered. "'Yet' seems to imply a future--a change, perhaps!" "Do you want a change too?" "Oh, come, you're not so dull as to have to ask that!" "You've told me nothing." "And I won't. But I'll ask you one question--if you'll leave it at that." "Well, what's the question?" "Did John send his love to me?" Grantley looked at her a moment, and smiled in deprecation. "It would have been tactful to invent the message," smiled Christine. "I'm getting a bit out of heart with tact, Christine." "Quite so, my dear man. And get out of patience with some other things too, if you can. Your patience would try Job--and not only from jealousy either." Grantley's only answer was a reflective smile. "And what about Tom Courtland?" she went on. "Is he with the children?" "No, he's living at the club." "Hum! At the club officially?"