She did not appear to notice the look of surprise which Kingcote was for a moment unable to suppress. Leading the way back to the rotunda, she placed a loose cushion and seated herself. The warmth here was temperate, not more than the season required for comfort. “So you don’t study?” she began, with friendly abruptness, when she had pointed to a place for her companion. “What, then, do you do? I am rude, you see, but--I wish to know.” “I wish I could satisfactorily account for my days. I read a little, walk a good deal, see the Vissians now and then----” “And cultivate _ennui_---isn’t it so? A most unprofitable kind of gardening. I believe you are thoroughly miserable; in fact, you are not at much pains to hide it.” “Scarcely as much as courtesy requires, you would say. I wish I could be more amusing, Mrs. Clarendon.” “I don’t ask you to be amusing--only to show yourself a little amused at my impertinent curiosity. Why should you have so forgotten the habit of cheerfulness?” “The habit?” “Certainly. Is it not a habit, as long as we are in health?” “In people happily endowed, I suppose. Temperament and circumstances may enable one to keep a bright view of life.” “Rather, a reasonable effort of the will, I should say. I am often tempted to be dreary, but I refuse to give way.” Kingcote smiled, almost laughed. “You think I have nothing to be dreary about?” she asked, gazing at him as if trying to read his thoughts. “That is a mistake; I don’t speak idly. It would be excusable enough if I lost my cheerfulness. But with me it _is_ a habit. Under any circumstances there’s a great deal of entertainment to be got out of life. Of course, if one puts oneself under the most unfavourable conditions--goes to live in a remote hermitage, shuts oneself from social comforts, reads doleful books about funeral urns----” She caught his eye, and broke off with bright laughter. “You don’t care for Sir Thomas Browne?” he asked. “I shouldn’t be honest if I said I did. I am afraid that kind of reading is beyond me. Ada--Miss Warren--enjoys it; but she is intellectual, and I cannot pretend to be.” “What do you read, Mrs. Clarendon?” “The newspapers, and now and then a novel--_voilà tout!_” “There are better things than books,” observed Kingcote. A footstep was heard in the inner house. “Is that you, Reuben?” the lady called, causing the gardener to put his head through the door with the admission, “It be me, ma’am.” She exchanged words with him, then proposed to Kingcote that they should go to the drawing-room for tea. On their way she paused in the hall, with talk about the panelling. Pointing to a fox’s head: “A trophy of last season. We killed, that day, a couple of fields behind Wood End.”