Mrs. Archinard had suddenly assumed an active _rôle_ in life most confusing to her daughter. Even mamma did not need her. Mrs. Archinard drove out in the pony-cart to see people; she held quite a little _côterie_ of callers every afternoon. Mrs. Archinard's little _Causeries de Mardi_, her society for little weekly dinners--only six chosen members--_les Élites_--stirred Allersley to the quick with æsthetic thrills and heart-burnings. Mrs. Archinard laughed prettily and lightly at her own feats, but Allersley was awestricken, and got down its Sainte-Beuve trembling, resolved on firm foundations. Hilda was not one of _les Élites_. "Just for us old people, trying to amuse ourselves," Mrs. Archinard said, and at the _Causeries_ Hilda was an anomalous and silent onlooker; indeed the _Causeries_ were quite Sainte-Beuvian in their monologic form, Mrs. Archinard _causant_ and Allersley attentive, but discreetly reticent, no one caring to risk a revelation of ignorance. The Captain carefully avoided both the _élites_ and the _mardis_, and devoted himself to more commonplace individualities whose dinners were good, and then one wasn't required to strain one's temper by listening to fine talk. Mary Apswith spent a week at the Manor, and one fresh sunny morning she came to see Hilda. She found her in the garden standing between the rows of sweet-peas, and filling with their fragrant loveliness the basket on her arm. Mary's mind had been given over to a commotion of conjecture since Peter's flying visit to her in London. He had told her much and yet not enough; though what he had told insured sympathy for Hilda. Mary was generous, and the sight of Hilda's white sunlit face completed Peter's work. She found that she had kissed Hilda--she, so undemonstrative--and standing with her arms around the girl's slight shoulders, she said, looking at her with a grave smile, in which the slight touch of playfulness reminded poor Hilda of Peter-- "You will see _me_, won't you?" Hilda still held in her hands the last long sprays she had cut--palest pink and palest purple, "on tiptoe for a flight." "How kind of you to come," she said. "Kind of you to say so, since I come from the enemy's camp. That reckless brother of mine!" "Did he send you?" Hilda asked, fright in her eyes. "Send me? Oh no, he didn't send me; but after what he has told me, I came naturally of my own free will." Hilda smiled faintly in reply to Mary's smile. "What has he told you?" "Why, simply that he had been in love with you almost from the day he proposed to Katherine; indeed he implied an even remoter origin. Really Peter ought to be whipped! He almost deserves the sacking you are giving him!" Hilda winced at the humorous tone.