‘Yes,’ replied Kingston, warming to the prospect; ‘it sounds a delightful plan. I was wondering when we could go to Brakelond. Hugh Frazer did say something about lending us his place, but I can easily explain. Luckily, all my Dadd relations are out of the reckoning, so there is no one to claim any tiresome rights. By all means let us go to Brakelond. It must be the most gorgeous old place. Haven’t they still got the room where Queen Isabel sat and worked?’ ‘Yes, horrid woman!’ said Gundred tersely. ‘I don’t like to talk about her. I can scarcely believe she was my ancestress.’ ‘But splendid, Gundred--splendid and tragic and romantic.’ Gundred’s firm, pale lips tightened into a line of disapproval. ‘I never can see why wicked people are especially splendid or tragic or romantic,’ she said. ‘Goodness is so much nicer--yes?’ ‘Perhaps it is,’ replied Kingston, after a pause, ‘but not always so interesting.’ ‘One has no wish to be interested in anything that is not pure and beautiful and good,’ announced Gundred, with an air of virtuous finality. ‘Oh, well, we’ll go there, anyhow,’ answered Kingston, shying away from the imminent argument, ‘and have no end of a mystic splendid time. We’ll sit about all day, and forget the world, and read novels to each other.’ ‘Not novels, dear,’ said Gundred gently; ‘sensible books--yes?’ Kingston shrugged his shoulders. Clearly the conversation had run into one of its frequent culs-de-sac, and there was no continuing it. Gundred was impregnable to all assaults of the picturesque, and adamant to all new opinions or suggestions. Over Kingston was coming that bruised and daunted feeling to which, sooner or later, his meetings with her seemed invariably to lead. She held him at arm’s length, baffled him, rebuffed him, deliberately kept herself a stranger from his ardours, his intimacy. Each dialogue of theirs seemed to resolve itself inevitably into a futile if friendly discussion of topics indifferent. Of course this offered all the richer promise for the long years of coming matrimony, but meanwhile Gundred’s maidenly reserve turned the preliminary canter of courtship into a jog over rather arid and sterile ground. When Lady Adela tardily returned to the room, in the wake of tea, she found the lovers canvassing the _Academy_. Gundred, however, was so perfectly certain that her choice was sound and holy that the conversation was unfruitful if amiable. Lady Adela joined it, and it easily admitted a third voice. CHAPTER V