Jethro, across his little heaps of flagging weeds and clods of yellow earth, watched the two gloomily. He was tired of Pamela’s elegant brother; he was suspicious, although he could not have explained why. His welcome to the shipwrecked stranger had been warm--it had even extended to a free drawing on his check-book; but he did not want his kinsman’s-hospitality to be construed into a life invitation. He remembered a funny story he had once heard about an engaging Irishman who had come on a month’s visit to a country house and stayed forty-five years. Edred had lamed his best horse; he had considerably reduced the cask of old whisky; he dipped too deeply into the tobacco-jar. He might stay until the wedding, and when that was over he must take himself off--to the West Coast of Africa, to another wreck, if he chose. The busy man, hoeing peas not because it was necessary but as a positive outlet for his energy, was heartily sick of the idle one, who strolled languidly along the rose border, the smoke from his cigar making a lean, blue string. The wicket-gate creaked. Pamela looked up sharply. Heels clattered on the raised brick path, and a blithe voice called out, “Where are you all?” “It’s Nancy.” Edred moved forward so abruptly that he broke the long ash of his cigar, which he had been carefully preserving. Pamela followed. A tall, slim figure stood for a moment in the frame of the shining holly arch at the entrance of the garden. The sun caught Nancy’s masses of brick-red hair and enveloped her pretty face in flame. She called out to Jethro: “Mother wants you to tell me how much you think she ought to get a load for her hay. Write it down, please, or I am sure to forget.” She met Pamela at the beginning of the grass path. They kissed. Edred watched the tame little salute cynically. Then he took Nancy’s hand in the cycling glove with the perforated palm--like a thin crumpet--and watched her white lids fall. She was such a child that she never tried to hide her feelings. Pamela dragged off a great branch of damask rose and tore her fingers. “You should always cut roses,” Nancy said reprovingly, taking up a label. “Francesca Kruger--that’s flesh, tinged with saffron, isn’t it?” “Copper,” returned Pamela curtly. “I wish we could have some good roses. Evergreen isn’t successful with flowers. But he lets us have plenty of vegetables. I came to know if you would both come over to Malling Flower Show next Thursday. We could bike--that would be great fun, wouldn’t it? Mr. Meadows has asked me to judge the wild flowers, and I feel so horribly nervous. But I’ve been reading it up.” “You can’t go to Malling,” Pamela said, looking sternly at the weak, radiant face, and hating Nancy all the more fiercely because her temples were so purely white, and because the ruddy hair grew round them so charmingly. “It’s lecture-day at Liddleshorn--the nursing lecture. It will be very interesting; we are going to bandage a small boy.”