Lady Dover's letter to Madge was most elastic as regarded the date of their visit and thoroughly cordial, for she never did things by halves, and the welcome that would be given to her and Evelyn if he could possibly spare time to visit so remote a place was sincerity itself. About accepting it, she had her own view quite clearly formed, but her own pride, her pride, too, in her husband, prevented her from giving the slightest inkling of it to him. For she saw clearly that this visit was proposed by Lady Dover with the definite purpose of showing an act of friendliness after her marriage; it was clearly made with intention, and in her heart of hearts Madge was intensely grateful. To hint this, however, to Evelyn was impossible. But his frank eagerness to go made it unnecessary for her to consider any more the diplomatic reason for doing so. "Oh, let's go," he said. "Surely Scotland is better than London. What is there here? Just a stuffy town, and Battersea Park, and nothing whatever to do." Madge knew that her own feeling of being hurt at this was unreasonable. This solitude of London had been unutterably dear to her, but she knew her own feeling to be unreasonable, since she never doubted--and rightly--how dear it had been to him. And why should he not want to be externally amused--to shoot, to fish, to do all those things that he delighted in? And echo answered "Why?" It was at breakfast time that this letter arrived, and the bacon was undeniably less good than it would have been two days previously. Evelyn sniffed at it, and decided against it. But his sensitiveness to slightly _passée_ bacon was sensitive to her feelings also. "One doesn't want meat food in the summer," he said. "Tea and marmalade--how delicious!" Madge handed him his tea. "You dear," she said. "It is high, and it's my fault; I thought it would be good just for to-day. But it isn't. Oh, Evelyn, it was nice of you to pretend you didn't want any. But you can't act before me. I always know you. So give it up." Evelyn gave a great shout of laughter. "Madge and marmalade," he said. "That's good enough for me. In fact, I would leave out the marmalade if required. Oh, Madge, why can't you be serious and talk about this. By the way, I'll paint another sketch of you called 'Bad bacon'; the yearning face of the young wife. You are young, you know, and you are my wife. Don't chatter so, it confuses me. Now Lady Dover, if you will be silent one moment, lives at Golspie." "That's where you are wrong," said Madge. "You have to go to Golspie before you begin." "I don't want to begin. I want to get there. Don't you?" Madge put on the woeful face that always introduced Ellesdee. "I don't like the ticket man at King's Cross," she said. "I don't think he is what he seems." Evelyn had eaten by this time all the crust off a Hovis loaf.