Signor Pagliadini and Roma were sitting together under the shade of a great beech-tree. They could only be imperfectly seen through the network of green leaves that shut them off from the drive; yet something in the manner in which they sat, and their evident absorption in one another, prompted Miss Marjory’s remark, and gave it distinct significance. ‘What a good thing!’ said Tor. ‘Old Meredith likes him very much. And we shall have him to ourselves, too, this afternoon, which is another advantage.’ Michael Meredith was charmed with Miss Marjory, and talked on with extreme affability. It was so seldom that a stranger sought him out, as this guest of Philip’s had done, that he hardly knew how to make enough of the occasion. Signor Pagliadini’s name, of course, came up, and Miss Marjory displayed great interest in him. She had been so delighted by his talk the previous evening. Who was he? Was he an old friend of Mr. Meredith’s? He seemed so well-bred and well-read a young man, he must be of a good family. Mr. Meredith confessed that he knew very little of the young man, save that he was an old friend of one of his wife’s relatives. He brought an introduction from Signor Mattei, who had spoken of him as a young man of rank and fortune, but beyond that he had no knowledge of his antecedents. Miss Marjory, secure in her unimpeachable position, could ask a great many questions quite naturally, which would excite suspicion from anyone less generally vivacious and talkative. It seemed only right for her to ask a dozen questions, and make a hundred comments, where other people would have hardly a word to say; and whilst Mr. Meredith was perfectly unconscious of being cross-examined, Miss Marjory had elicited the information that he knew nothing whatever about the mysterious stranger, except what that gentleman chose to tell him. ‘As for his introduction,’ said she afterwards to Tor, ‘we all know what an introduction is worth, when a man has a motive in getting one. I could get an introduction from the man in the moon, I haven’t a doubt, if once I made up my mind to have one.’ ‘I believe you could,’ answered Tor. Whereat Miss Marjory laughed, and told him that he ought to be ashamed of making game of an old woman. Certainly Tor had a warm partizan in Miss Marjory. Whatever she did, was done with a will; and when she once became interested in any cause, she worked for it heart and soul. Maud was her next victim. She was not quite sure whether she was good enough for her favourite Tor, and wished to satisfy herself upon the point. For even if not entirely what she should be, she might be moulded to a better frame; and if Tor’s mind was made up—if he must have Maud and nobody else—Maud he should have, and Lewis Belassis should be made to go to the wall. Under existing circumstances, she could in no case be allowed to engage herself to her cousin.