Pauline withdrew from the conversation after the whispered attempt to correct her mother about Mr. Hazlewood's having taken Plashers Mead in order to be a farmer. She wanted to contemplate the visitor without being made to involve herself in the confusions of politeness. 'Was he dangerous to Richard?' she asked herself, and alas, she had to tell herself that indeed it seemed probable he might be. Of course he was inevitably on the way to falling in love with Margaret, and as she looked at him with his clear-cut pale face, his tumbled hair and large brown eyes which changed what seemed at first a slightly cynical personality to one that was almost a little wistful, Pauline began to speculate if Margaret might not herself be rather attracted to him. This was an unforeseen complication, for Margaret so far had only accepted homage. Pauline definitely began to be jealous for Richard whose homage had been the most prodigal of any; and as Guy drawled on about his first adventure of house-keeping she told herself he was affected. The impression, too, of listening to someone more than usually self-possessed and cynical revived in her mind; and those maliciously drooping lids were obliterating the effect of the brown eyes. Sitting by herself in the oriel-window Pauline was nearly sure she did not like him. He had no business to be at the Rectory when Richard was building a bridge out in India; and now here was Margaret strolling graciously in and almost at once obviously knowing so well how to get on with this idler. Oh, positively she disliked him. So cold and so cruel was that mouth, and so vain he was, as he sat there bending forward over hand-clasped, long, stupid, crossed legs. What right had he to laugh with Margaret about their father's visit? This stranger had assuredly never appreciated him. He was come here to spoil the happiness of Wychford, to destroy the immemorial perfection of life at the Rectory. And why would he keep looking up at herself? Margaret could be pleasant to anybody, but this intruder would soon find that she herself was loyal to the absent. Pauline wished that, when he met them all on that night of the moon, she had been so horridly rude as to make him avoid the family for ever. How could Margaret sit there talking so unconcernedly, when Richard might be dying of sunstroke at this very moment? Margaret was heartless, and this stranger with his drawl and his undergraduate affectation would encourage her to sneer at everything. "What's the matter, Pauline dearest?" her mother turned round to ask. "Nothing," answered Pauline, biting her lips to keep back surely the most unreasonable tears she had ever felt were springing. "You're not cross with me for calling you a landslide?" persisted Mrs. Grey, smiling at her from the midst of a glory momentarily shed by a stormy ray of sunshine. "Oh, mother," said Pauline, now fairly in the midway between laughter and tears. "It was an avalanche you called me."