There was a moment's silence after he had uttered the words. He got up and moved slowly down the aisle, opening the door, seeing again the meadow of buttercups, yellow as gold, and listening again to the sparrows chirruping in the sunshine outside. "I have been in that church a quarter of an hour," he said to himself, "and in trying to dive to the depths of myself and find out whether I was giving a woman all I had to give, I did not get time to consider that woman's probable answer, should I place my uninteresting life and liberty at her disposal." XV "NOW LUBIN IS AWAY" Lavendar made his adieux after luncheon and went off to London. "Good-bye for the present, Mrs. de Tracy; I shall be back on Wednesday probably, if I can arrange it," he said. "Good-bye, Mrs. Loring," and here he altered the phrase to "Shall I come back on Wednesday?" for his hostess had left the open door. There was no hesitation, but all too little sentiment, about Robinette's reply. "Wednesday, at the latest, are my orders," she answered merrily, and with the words ringing in his ears Lavendar took his departure. "Do you remember that this is the afternoon of the garden party at Revelsmere?" Mrs. de Tracy enquired, coming into the drawing room a few minutes later, where Mrs. Loring stood by the open window. She had allowed herself just five minutes of depression, staring out at the buttercup meadow. How black the rooks looked as they flew about it and how dreary everything was, now that Lavendar had gone! She was woman enough to be able to feel inwardly amused at her own absurdity, when she recognized that the ensuing three days seemed to stretch out into a limitless expanse of dullness. "The village seemed asleep or dead now Lubin was away!" Still, after all, it was an occasion for wearing a pretty frock, and she knew herself well enough to feel sure that the sight of a few of her fellow-creatures even pretending to enjoy themselves, would make her volatile spirits rise like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day. Miss Smeardon was to be her companion, as Mrs. de Tracy had a headache that afternoon and was afraid of the heat, she said. "What heat?" Robinette had asked innocently, for in spite of the brilliant sunlight the wind blew from the east, keen as a knife. "I shall take a good wrap in the carriage in spite of this tropical temperature," she thought. Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the palsied horse. Miss Smeardon gave one glance at Mrs. Loring's dress, and Robinette gave one glance at Miss Smeardon's, each making her own comments.