"You are certainly most delightfully cool here in the shade," he said. "It is awfully hot in that promenade." "It must be," said Rachel. "How long have you been here?" Wentworth went on, sitting down. "How long is it?" said Rachel, with a slightly puzzled look, looking at Rendel. "Only a few days, isn't it?" "Yes, not quite a week. My wife has not been well. We were recommended here that she might do the cure." "I see," Wentworth said, somewhat relieved at finding himself on the way to an explanation. "Well, this is a splendid place, I believe, for the people that it cures," he added sapiently. "No doubt," Rendel said. There was another pause. "Then that is why we have not seen you at the Casino," Wentworth said. "One can't avoid running up against people one knows at every turn here." "Is that so?" said Rendel, a note of anxiety in his voice. "We have not run up against any one yet." "Oh! dear me, yes," said Wentworth, unconscious that each of the names he might enumerate would represent to Rendel a possible inexorable judge. "Half London is here: Lady Chaloner, Pateley--all sorts of people." "Pateley?" said Rendel, the blood rushing to his face at the association of ideas called up in his mind by that name. "Of course," said Wentworth. "Pateley, flourishing like the bay-tree. They say he is making thousands, and he looks as if he were." "Out of the _Arbiter_?" asked Rendel. "The _Arbiter_, I suppose, or something else. But I have no doubt he would tell you if you asked him. He does not impress me as being one of the very reserved kind." "I don't know," said Rendel. "I don't suppose Pateley ever says more than he means to say, with all his air of hearty communicativeness." "Well, I daresay not," said Wentworth. "The man's very good company after all; and as long as none of our secrets are in his keeping, it doesn't matter particularly." Rendel said nothing. He felt he could not meet Pateley face to face at this moment. "What do you do, then, all day here," said Wentworth, "if you don't drink the waters, and don't go to the Casino, and don't play Bridge?" "I don't know. I don't do very much," said Rendel, with an involuntary accent in the words that made Wentworth ponder over the undesirability of marrying a wife who is in mourning and depressed. "You should go into the wood," said Wentworth, "as the Germans do. We found a lot of them the other day singing part-songs out of little books. There is a band of them here called the Society of the United Thrushes, composed of the most respectable and most middle-aged ladies of the district." "That sounds charming," said Rendel. "Look here," said Wentworth, "if you don't care to walk alone, do let's walk together. One can go up here and along the wood for miles. We'll have good long stretches as we used to at Oxford. What do you think, Mrs. Rendel? Don't you think it would be a good thing for him?" "Very," said Rachel with a smile. "I think he ought to go and walk."