"I should. I plead guilty, Bernard. I should have flown straight to a bath. It takes a Grizel to make herself charming with whitewashed hair, but to do me justice I should _not_ have chosen the morning of a dinner party to drag about heavy furniture in the room overhead." "Did she do that?" "She had it done. And the house being jerry built, the new ceilings are only guaranteed to stay up, if they are not pushed. She pushed, and in revenge this particular ceiling loosened itself slowly, waiting for the crucial moment... They have gone up to town for a week, while the room is put right, so Grizel will feel that the game is worth the candle." "Humph!" The Squire was silent, seeing that he himself had persistently refused to take his wife to town for the last eight years. He was a country man, born and bred, and had never yet succeeded in discovering a time of year when the land was sufficiently lacking in interest to make it bearable to leave, and waste the time in town. Moreover, with the extraordinary meanness which affects some rich men, he hated spending money on hotel bills, while his own house was open. His wife could run up for a day when she needed new clothes,--what more did she want? Cassandra wanted a great deal more,--she wanted to see, and to hear, to refresh her spirit with art and music, to meet people who spoke her own language, and understood her own thoughts, and get away from the stultifying influence of a little country town. She had fought persistently for years in succession, but she had failed, and now she fought no more. Bernard said she had come to her senses. "What are _you_ going to do for the young couple?" he asked gruffly. "Another dinner would fall flat." "And they were here so lately," Cassandra agreed quickly. "Shall I fix the bulb party for next week, and ask the whole Mallison clan to lunch beforehand? I'm willing, if you are. Of course Captain Peignton would come too. It would be paying them a little extra attention, and avoid the bother of another dinner." "Just as you like!" The Squire was appeased by the prospect of a garden party, as his wife had intended he should be, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Another dinner with Dane and Teresa as guests would be insupportable so soon after that other evening when she had met his eyes across the banked-up flowers, and felt that strange, sweet certainty of understanding. After hearing of the engagement she had felt an intense dread of the next meeting, which must surely reveal to her her own folly in believing that this man felt any special interest in herself. He had looked pensive because he was in suspense; his appeal to her had been to a married woman who had presumably been through the mill, and whose help he was anxious to gain. She would see him radiant, glowing; his eyes would no longer linger on hers, he would no longer have the air of standing by to await her command: he would be wholly, entirely, obtrusively absorbed in Teresa!