“I’m not a very good authority,” she said, with a smile as cold as the January wind; “Uncle Charles has a better memory for things connected with church-going.” The intention to be unresponsive often makes itself felt more disagreeably than a repartee. It annoyed Glasgow, even while he set it down as an indirect tribute to his desertion. “I refuse to be described as a thing connected with church-going,” he said, looking straight at her and laughing; “I thought I had other associations.” Major Bunbury looked up quickly, not at Glasgow, but at Slaney. Her flushed silence was obvious enough for any one, except Lady Susan, who merely supposed that champagne at luncheon was having its almost inevitable result on the complexion. Perhaps it was by contrast that Glasgow’s habitual pallor seemed pastiness, and his easy manner something that struck Major Bunbury as being like bad form. “I say,” remarked Lady Susan, “when are we to go on and see this wonderful waterfall, or whatever it is? Where are the cigarettes? Let’s light up before we start.” “I think you’d better not,” said Glasgow, “the men will be back directly.” “Well, what do they matter?” “I think you’d better not,” he repeated, in that intimate tone that seemed so uncalled for. Lady Susan put up her eyebrows with an expression of petulant inquiry, and something as near a pout as was possible for a person not versed in the habit, but she shut her cigarette-case. Major Bunbury thought he had never seen her look so foolish. “Is she going to lose her head about him?” was the question that was suddenly driven in upon him. Until to-day, he thought she was merely occupying idleness and exhibiting indifferent taste. He and Slaney walked behind her and Glasgow along the muddy road, in that double _tête-à-tête_ now become inevitable; the wind blew cold and sweet off the lake and off the bog--cold, and sweet, and inimitably Irish, like Slaney herself, as Major Bunbury was at this moment capable of expressing it, if he had known that he was making the comparison. His mind had unconsciously stored up many such impressions of her, to what end it had not occurred to him to inquire. The road crossed a trout-stream, and by the bridge Glasgow and Lady Susan turned off and began to follow the bank of the little river through a stunted and intricate wood. In the track by which they made their way it was not possible to walk side by side; Bunbury went first, sometimes holding back a branch, sometimes giving her his hand when the rocks of the river brink thrust their slippery shoulders across the way. They spoke little, and by the gift of imaginative sympathy that was hers for those who interested her, she knew that his silence was vexed with misgiving about Lady Susan.