re was
no explanation; she had simply not come, preferring not to.

Nobody could understand, least of all Lord Lindfield. She had swum
further away.

But Daisy had not had a very amusing time. Punting appeared to
monopolize the attention of the punter.

CHAPTER XX.

All that day and throughout the greater part of the next Jeannie kept up
with chill politeness and composure this attitude towards Lord
Lindfield, which he, at any rate, found maddening. What made it the more
maddening was that to all the rest of the party she behaved with that
eager geniality which was so characteristic of her. Only when he was
there, and when he addressed her directly, something would come over her
manner that can only be compared to the forming of a film of ice over a
pool. To an acquaintance merely it would have been unnoticeable; even to
a friend, if it had happened only once or twice, it might have passed
undetected; as it was, he could not fail to see that it was there, nor
could he fail to puzzle his wits over what the cause of it might be.

During the day he tried to get a word with her in private, but she
seemed to anticipate his intention, and contrived that it should be
impossible for the request to be made. Once, however, just after the
return that afternoon from Boulter's Lock, he had managed to say to her:
"There is nothing the matter, is there?" and with complete politeness
she had replied: "I have just a touch of a cold. But it is nothing,
thanks." And thereupon she had taken up a newspaper, and remarked to
Lady Nottingham that the Eton and Harrow match seemed to have been
extraordinarily exciting.

Now, no man, unless he is definitely in love with and enthralled by a
woman, will, if he has anything which may be called spirit, stand this
sort of thing tamely. Lindfield honestly examined himself to see "if in
aught he had offended," could find no cause of offence in himself, and
then went through a series of conflicting and unsettling emotions.

He told himself that for some reason she had wished to get on intimate
terms with him, and then, her curiosity or whatever it was being
satisfied, she had merely opened the hand into which she had taken his
and, so to speak, wiped his hand off. This seemed to him a very mean and
heartless proceeding, but there it was. She had clearly done this, and
if a woman chose to behave like that to a man the only rejoinder
consistent with ordinary dignity and self-respect was to