Nearly hidden by great clusters of roses, some of which he was plucking, and talking at the same time to the head-gardener who stood by, was a good-looking gentleman of some five-and-twenty years. His light morning coat was flung back from the snowy white waistcoat, across which a gold chain passed, its seal drooping; a blue necktie, just as blue as his blue eyes, was carelessly tied round his neck. He might have been known for a Chavasse by those self-same eyes, for they had been his father's--Sir Peter's--before him. "About those geraniums that you have put out, Markham," he was saying. "How came you to do it? Lady Chavasse is very angry; she wanted them kept in the pots." "Well, Sir Geoffry, I only obeyed orders," replied the gardener--who was new to the place. "Lady Rachel told me to do it." "Lady Rachel did? Oh, very well. Lady Chavasse did not understand that, I suppose." Up went Lady Chavasse's window at this juncture. "Geoffry." Sir Geoffry stepped out from the roses, and smiled as he answered her. "Ask Markham about the geraniums, Geoffry--how he could dare to do such a thing without orders." "Mother, Rachel bade him do it. Of course she did not know that you wished it not done." "Oh," curtly replied Lady Chavasse. And she shut down the window again. By this it will be seen that the wishes of the two ladies at Chavasse Grange sometimes clashed. Lady Rachel, though perhaps regarded as second in authority, was fond of having her own way, and took it when she could. Lady Chavasse made a show of deferring to her generally; but she had reigned queen so long that she found it irksome, not to say humiliating, to yield the smallest point to her son's wife. They were sitting down to breakfast when Sir Geoffry went in, in the room that had once been the garden-parlour. It had been re-embellished since those days, and made the breakfast-room. Lady Chavasse was but in her forty-fourth year; a young woman, so to say, beautiful still, and excellently-well preserved. She wore a handsome dress of green muslin, with a dainty little cap of lace on her rich brown hair. Sir Geoffry's wife was in white; she looked just the same as when she was Rachel Derreston; her perfect features pale, and cold, and faultless. Geoffry Chavasse laid a rose by the side of each as he sat down. _He_ was the only one changed; changed since the light-hearted days before that episode of sin and care came to the Grange. It had soon passed away again; but somehow it had left its mark on him. His face seemed to have acquired a weary sort of look; and the fair bright hair was getting somewhat thin upon the temples. Sir Geoffry was in Parliament; but he had now paired off for the short remainder of the session. Sometimes they were all in London: sometimes Sir Geoffry would be there alone; or only with his wife: the Grange was their chief and usual home.