They came towards her, walking slowly and talking, across the soft ground of the rickyard, where the cartwheels had cut deep ruts and the wisps of straw were sodden into the black earth. It was a great satisfaction to her to see Henry and Lynes thus together. She was the impresario exhibiting them to one another. The afternoon was drawing very gently to a close. A little cold, perhaps, a little grey, but still tender; a dove-like grey, hovering over the trees, over the ricks, and over the barn with the yellow lichen on the roof. A tang of damp farmyard was, not unpleasantly, on the air. “We’ll go in now, shall we, Henry? It’s getting chilly,” said Mrs. Martin, wrapping herself more closely in her brown cloak, and nodding and smiling to Lynes. As they went towards the house, Henry said, looking down at her in that confidential way he had, “Well, that’s a great duty accomplished, isn’t it?” “Duty, Henry?” “Yes. Talking to Lynes, I mean.” “Oh! talking to Lynes. To be sure—— You were so nice to him, dear boy; thank you.” Duty—the word gave her a small chill. She bent over the fire in the sitting-room, poking it into a blaze; the logs fell apart and shot up into flame. “I do like a wood fire,” said Mrs. Martin. She held out her hands towards it; they were cold. She had not known, until that moment, how cold she had been. VIII They were at dinner. How nice Henry looked in his evening clothes; she liked his lean brown hands, and the gesture with which he smoothed back his hair. She smiled fondly as she thought how attractive all women must find Henry. Life on a ranch had not coarsened him; far from it. He was sensitive and masculine both, an ideal combination. “Dear Henry!” she murmured.