This was immediately after Young George had come home. Dick had driven himself over to luncheon. She and Beatrix and Miss Waterhouse had been in the Long Gallery when his name had been brought up, and Beatrix had said: "Oh, bother! I wanted to have a quiet afternoon." But over the luncheon table she had been in higher spirits than during the morning, when she had either been alone or sitting with them over her work, saying very little. This had given Caroline the idea that she was rather pleased that he had come over, after all, but had not in the least prepared her for what afterwards happened. They had all gone out into the garden. Tennis had been suggested, but it was very hot, and there were only three of them. They had sat and talked together, and after a time Caroline had gone indoors, but not with the object of leaving them alone together. If he had wanted that, Beatrix had given no sign that she did. She had come out an hour later, but they had gone off somewhere together. Tea was in the yew arbour, and as she was pouring it out, for herself and Miss Waterhouse, they had come up, and Dick had made his announcement. "Well, B and I have settled it up together. We're going to get married as soon as they'll let us." Looking back upon what had followed, Caroline could not yet gauge all that lay beneath the matter-of-fact air with which both of them treated the momentous event. With Dick, it was not so difficult. Probably Bunting had found the right solution of his steady unemotional way of bearing himself. He was a man of strong self-control, but there were signs in his voice and in his look that a great deal of ferment lay under the crust of his manner, and would become apparent if he were not under the compulsion of hiding it. But why should he have been under that compulsion at such a time, when love had found its triumphant reward, and there was no one before whom he need hide his exultation? How did Beatrix really stand towards him? She had always treated his obvious pursuit of her lightly, and never as if her heart had been in the least touched by his suit, though Caroline had believed that in time it might be. Dick had been a good deal in London during the latter part of the season, and he had been there because Beatrix was there, for it was not his habit to devote his leaves to a round of fashionable engagements. Beatrix had talked about him when she had returned home, but not as if he had made any further impression upon her. Nor had there been any difference in her attitude towards him since, though his visits had been more frequent and his suit presumably more pressing than before.