"Taking a mean advantage of us all I call it," says Dicky Browne. "_We_ got introduced in the cruel glare of day, with all our imperfections on our heads. _You_ waited for moonshine, balmy air, scent of roses, poetical effect, and so on! That's why you stayed away from dinner. And to think none of us saw through you! Well, I always said I was very innocent; quite unfit to go about alone!" "Not a doubt of it," said Roger, cheerfully. "But you won't have to complain of that long. We are all on the look-out for a keeper for you, and a straight waistcoat." Then, turning to Fabian, "Your headache better, old man?" "Thank you--yes. Your cousin is tired, I think, Dulce. Take her in and make her rest herself." "Ah! You are worn out," says Dulce to Portia, with contrition. "I have been so long getting you the shawl; but I could not help it. You must not stay up, you know, to do manners to us, you must go straight to bed this moment, and come down like a rose in the morning. Now confess you are tired." "Well, yes, I am afraid I am," says Portia, who is feeling faintly disappointed for the first time since her arrival. Why, she scarcely knows. "She said 'I am a-weary, a-weary; I would I were a-bed,'" quotes Mr. Browne, feelingly. Whereupon everyone feels it his duty to take Portia at once back to the house, less Mr. Browne, by any ill-luck, should commit himself still further. It is only when Portia is at last alone in her own room that she recollects that Fabian forgot to shake hands with her. Or was it she with Fabian? CHAPTER V. "Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!" --"AS YOU LIKE IT." "I WISH you would _try_ to remember," says Dulce, a little hastily. She is sitting in a rather Gothic chair, and the day is ultra-hot, and the strain upon her mental powers is greater than she can bear. Hence the haste. She is leaning back in the uneasy chair now, pencil in hand, and is looking up at Roger, who is leaning over the table, in a somewhat supercilious manner, and is plainly giving him to understand that she thinks him a very stupid person, indeed. This is irritating, and Roger naturally resents it. A few puckers show themselves upon his forehead, and he turns over a page or two of the gardener's book before him with a movement suggestive of impatience. "I _am_ trying," he says, shortly. "Well, you needn't tear the book in pieces," says Dulce, severely. "I'm not tearing anything," retorts Mr. Dare, indignantly. "You look as if you wanted to," says Dulce. "I don't want anything except to be let alone," says Mr. Dare. The windows are all wide open. They were flung wide an hour ago, in the fond hope that some passing breeze might enter through them. But no breeze cometh--is not, indeed, born--and the windows yawn for it in vain. Outside, all Nature seems asleep; inside, the very curtains are motionless.