The ordinary everyday things of life came back with a curious dislocating jerk, and she found herself looking into a very wonderful pair of golden-brown eyes set in short, but oddly thick, black lashes, and a light high voice spoke, a voice with sudden bell-like cadences in it, so often heard in the voice of French women. It was as attractive as all the rest of Violet Riversley’s physical equipment. “Is it Miss Seer? May I introduce myself? I expect as Roger North’s daughter will be simplest,” she said, holding out her hand “Father dropped me here on his way to Fairbridge with Lady Condor. They are both calling here later to see you and pick me up, also hoping for tea, father told me to say. Your maid told me I should find you if I came down this way. Do you mind that I have picked some of your moon daisies? There are none fine as grow in this field.” “No, no, of course not,” Ruth half stammered, realizing for the first time that she carried a sheaf of daisies in the bend of her arm. Why, everything would have been hers but for the chance of war. This was the woman who was to have married Dick Carey. And somehow, all at once, Ruth knew that this meeting was not the ordinary everyday occurrence such meetings mostly are. It had a meaning, a purpose of its own. She felt a sudden shrinking of some inner sense, even as she had just now felt a physical shrinking. She wanted to back out of something, she knew not what, just as she had had that ridiculous desire just now to turn round and go the other way. And yet, standing staring at her in this stupid dumb way, she did not dislike Violet Riversley; far from it. She was distinctly attracted by her, and her beauty drew Ruth like a charm. It seemed quite a long time before she heard her own voice saying, “Please pick—take—anything you like.” “Thanks ever so much,” said Mrs. Riversley. She had turned to walk up the path. “I’m just like a child. I always want to pick flowers when I see them, and they seem to grow here better than anywhere else I know. Mr. Carey used to say he had squared the Flower Elementals.” She spoke the name quite simply and casually, while Ruth was conscious of a ridiculous feeling of shyness. “I think it quite likely,” she answered. “Look at the wisteria.” They had reached the ridge of the slope and could see where the flowered fields merged into the garden proper. “All along the top of the wall, against the blue. I have never seen any so wonderful.” It was amazingly wonderful, but Mrs. Riversley looked at it without any apparent pleasure. “It is ever so good of you to let me come and invade you in this informal way,” she said, with her little gracious social manner. “Father said he was sure you would not mind. And you won’t let me interrupt you, will you? You work on the farm yourself, don’t you? It is not just a pretence of farming with you.”