The _modus vivendi_, like all other arrangements of its kind, was therefore safe and convenient. It settled nothing; but it was what the term implied, a way of living. It was not an ideal way of living, or a way that shielded anyone from comment; but it was a way. As for comment, it reached Bob only indirectly, and not oftener than every now and then. Perhaps it came in as pointed a form as it ever assumed for him in a seemingly chance remark from the chauffeur’s wife, Mrs. Gull. It was not a chance remark, for the neat, pretty, thin-lipped, pinched-face Englishwoman who had passed all her life "in service" didn’t make ill-considered observations. "I suppose we shall see the young lady down, sir, some day soon?" "Yes, some day soon," Bob replied, cautiously, getting ready in the hall to go to town. "To remain?" It was all summed up in those three syllables—all the gossip on the Collingham estate, and on all the estates at Marillo, not to go farther afield. "Not to remain just yet," Bob answered, judiciously. "Mrs. Follett isn’t well, and Mrs. Collingham has two younger sisters whom she has to take care of." That this explanation was not adequate he knew; and yet it was an explanation. "It certainly do seem queer," Mrs. Gull observed to the gardener and the gardener’s wife, in a company that included Gull; and Gull, who was from Somersetshire, replied, "It most zure and zertainly do." But on the Sunday afternoon two weeks after Bob’s return "the young lady" paid her visit to Collingham Lodge, accompanied by her mother and two sisters. The journey was made in what Gladys characterized as "style," the style being mainly supplied by Gull in his sedate chauffeur’s uniform. But the fact that he drove the car left Bob free to sit with his guests in the tonneau. He put Jennie, as hostess and mistress of the car, in the right-hand corner, Mrs. Follett in the left one, and Gussie in the middle. He and Gladys occupied the adjustable seats behind the chauffeur. At sight of the light linen rug with the Collingham initials in crimson appliqué, Gussie and Gladys exchanged appreciative glances, and they both searched the neighboring piazzas for a glimpse of Addie Inglis or Samuella Weatherby. Acquainted now with the fact that Jennie had viewed the celestial country whither they were traveling, and with her descriptions of the wonders she had seen almost learned by rote, the girls came near to forgetting that Teddy was in a cell. But his mother didn’t forget it. Silent, austere, incapable of pleasure, and waiting only the moment of the boy’s release and her own, her eyes roamed the parched September landscape and saw none of it. She did not appear unhappy—only removed into a world of her own, a world of long, long thoughts.