Collingwood used his glance of polite inquiry to make a closer inspection of his hostess. He decided that Nesta Mallathorpe was not so much pretty as eminently attractive--a tall, well-developed, warm-coloured young woman, whose clear grey eyes and red lips and general bearing indicated the possession of good health and spirits. And he was quite certain that if he had ever seen her before he would not have forgotten it. "Where have you seen me?" he asked, smiling back at her. "Have you forgotten the mock-trial--year before last?" she asked. Collingwood remembered what she was alluding to. He had taken part, in company with various other law students, in a mock-trial, a breach of promise case, for the benefit of a certain London hospital, to him had fallen one of the principal parts, that of counsel for the plaintiff. "When I saw your name, I remembered it at once," she went on. "I was there--I was a probationer at St. Chad's Hospital at that time." "Dear me!" said Collingwood, "I should have thought our histrionic efforts would have been forgotten. I'm afraid I don't remember much about them, except that we had a lot of fun out of the affair. So you were at St. Chad's?" he continued, with a reminiscence of the surroundings of the institution they were talking of. "Very different to Normandale!" "Yes," she replied. "Very--very different to Normandale. But when I was at St. Chad's, I didn't know that I--that we should ever come to Normandale." "And now that you are here?" he asked. The girl looked out through the big window on the valley which lay in front of the old house, and she shook her head a little. "It's very beautiful," she answered, "but I sometimes wish I was back at St. Chad's--with something to do. Here--there's nothing to do but to do nothing." Collingwood realized that this was not the complaint of the well-to-do young woman who finds time hang heavy--it was rather indicative of a desire for action. "I understand!" he said. "I think I should feel like that. One wants--I suppose--is it action, movement, what is it?" "Better call it occupation--that's a plain term," she answered. "We're both suffering from lack of occupation here, my brother and I. And it's bad for us--especially for him."