After dinner, the company of his thoughts intolerable, he told Rider that he was going out and walked across the park to the cottage below the Downs. Mrs. Manning was always glad to see him, and he knew he would like to sit in an arm-chair and listen to her placid chat. She understood just nothing at all, that was the best of her. Prideaux would understand sufficient to irritate but not enough to help; the Manor had an air of understanding but of keeping its own placid secret. Mrs. Manning would talk about her fowls and ask him if he did not think Mr. Lloyd George too terrible. And in the morning he would write to Tressor. Ursula was there. It appeared that her picture was nearing completion, and that she was, as it were, standing aside for a day or two to be quite sure of the necessary final touches. She sat idly, watching her mother at work. He studied her profile as she sat, deliberately telling himself that this and that might have been improved, deliberately conscious that he would not have altered a line. Sure strength lingered on her face in some subtle way. She was oddly remote, splendidly active, he felt,--the other side of a veil. Of that veil she was in supreme command. Not that it mattered; he did not want her to lift it. He was too preoccupied, too much on the rack to care. When he had gone, the girl sat on silent for a little. Then, without moving, she asked a question or two of her mother. "Mother, did you see much of Mr. Kestern while I was away?" "Yes, dear, a good deal. He and Arnold came several times, and when Arnold went, he kept up the habit of dropping in." "Does he ever talk much?" "No, not much. He's a quiet man, I think." Certain vivid little scenes formed themselves in Ursula's mind. She had seen him walking and talking with Manning, had heard him with Tressor. And she remembered his face by the lake and in her room. A quiet man? Eager, ardent, she had thought him. And there was his verse, too. "He's absorbed in his work, I expect," went on her mother, her head on one side as she touched her embroidery deftly. "Mr. Tressor said he thought he would do a great deal. He said he was very prolific, I remember. They use such odd words." "He's all alone up there now, isn't he?" "Yes, dear. But Mr. Prideaux calls, and he goes to see him." "Mr. Prideaux? Does he like him?" "Very much, dear, I believe. But the Vicar is not at all gossipy, you know." "Do you like him, Ursula?" asked Miss Netterly curiously. The girl smiled. "I scarcely know him, auntie," she said. "Well, dear," said her mother, folding her work, "I think it's bedtime. You must be tired, too." Mrs. Manning always thought one must be tired. Curiously enough, she was so nice about it that one forgot to be irritated.