She hated the young person more bitterly than she had ever hated any one, and she would have heard of her death with no shadow of pity but rather a great rejoicing. In the first place, the woman had come between Clare and Robin; secondly, she threatened the good name of the family; thirdly, she was forcing Clare to do several things that she very much disliked doing. For all these reasons the young person was too bad to live--but she had no intention of being uncivil. Although this was her first experience of diplomacy, she had very definite ideas as to how such things ought to be conducted, and civility would hide a multitude of subtleties. Clare meant to be very subtle, very kind, and, once the letters were in her hand, very unrelenting. She was wearing a very handsome dress of grey silk with a large picture hat with grey feathers: she entered the room with a rustle, and the sweep of the skirts spoke of infinite condescension. "Miss Feverel, I believe--" she held out her hand--"I am afraid this is a most unceremonious hour for a call, and if I have interrupted you in your work, pray go on. I wouldn't for the world. What a day, hasn't it been? I always think that these sort of grey depressing days are so much worse than the downright pouring ones, don't you? You are always expecting, you know, and then nothing ever comes." Dahlia looked rather nervous in the window, and on her face there fluttered a rather uncertain smile. "Yes," she said, a little timidly; "but I think that most of the days here are grey." "Ah, you find that, do you? Well, now, that's strange, because I must say that I haven't found that my own experience--and Cornwall, you know, is said to be the land of colour--the English Riviera some, rather prettily, call it--and St. Ives, you know, along the coast is quite a place for painters because of the colour that they get there." Dahlia said "Yes," and there was a pause. Then Clare made her plunge. "You must wonder a little, Miss Feverel, what I have come about. I really must apologise again about the hour. But I won't keep you more than a moment; and it is all quite a trivial matter--so trivial that I am ashamed to disturb you about it. I would have written, but I happened to be passing and--so--I came in." "Yes?" said Dahlia. "Well, it's about some letters. Perhaps you have forgotten that my nephew, Robert Trojan, wrote to you last summer. He tells me that you met last summer at Cambridge and became rather well acquainted, and that after that he wrote to you for several months. He tells me that he wrote to you asking you to return his letters, and that you, doubtless through forgetfulness, failed to reply. He is naturally a little nervous about writing to you again, and so I thought that--as I was passing--I would just come and see you about the matter. But I am really ashamed to bother you about anything so trivial." "No," answered Dahlia, "I didn't forget--I wrote--answered Robin's letter."