"Oh, she's honest enough in _that_ way," said Barbara. "And he couldn't see it. He's so intent on his own beautiful Postlethwaite nose, he can't see anything that goes on under it.... Still, honest or not honest, she's a beast, Barbara. When they'd been such pals and he'd helped her, to have gone and rounded on the poor thing like that. She might just as well have pulled his Postlethwaite nose. It couldn't have hurt more." "Oh, I think he'll get over it." "I mean it couldn't have hurt _me_ more." "She _is_ a beast," said Barbara. "I bet you anything you like it's her fault. She drove him to it." "No, Barbara, it was _my_ fault. _I_ drove him. I'm always laughing at him, and he can't bear being laughed at. It makes him feel all stuffy and middle-aged. He only goes in for passion because it makes him feel young." "It isn't really passion," said Barbara. "No, you wise thing, it isn't. If it was I could forgive him. I could forgive it if he really felt young. It's this ghastly affectation I can't stand.... But it's my fault, Barbara, my fault. I should have kept him young...." They sat silent, Barbara at Fanny's feet. Presently Fanny drew the girl's head down into her lap. "You'll never be old, Barbara," she said. "And Ralph won't." "What made you think of Ralph, Fanny?" "Horatio, of course." XII 1 If any rumour circulated round Wyck-on-the-Hill, sooner or later it was bound to reach the old lady at the Dower House. The Dower House was the redistributing centre for the news of the district. Thus Mr. Waddington heard that Mrs. Levitt was talking about letting the White House furnished; that she was in debt to all the tradesmen in the place; that her rent at Mrs. Trinder's was still owing; that her losses at bridge were never paid for. He heard that if Major Markham had been thinking of Mrs. Levitt, he had changed his mind; there was even a definite rumour about a broken engagement. Anyhow, Major Markham was now paying unmistakable attentions to the youngest Miss Hawtrey of Medlicott. But as, engagement or no engagement, his attentions to Mrs. Levitt had been unmistakable too, their rupture required some explanation. It was supposed that the letter which the Major's mother, old Mrs. Markham of Medlicott, received from her daughter, Mrs. Dick Benham of Tunbridge Wells, did very thoroughly explain it. There had been "things" in that letter which Mrs. Markham had not been able to repeat, but you gathered from her singular reticence that they had something to do with Dick Benham and Mrs. Levitt, and that they showed conclusively that Elise was not what old Mrs. Waddington called "a nice woman." "They say she led Frank Levitt an awful life. The Benhams, my dear, won't have her in the house."