tale, she reflected, would have tickled Jack Bendish, but Captain
Hyde, though he smiled at it dutifully, did not seem to be
amused.

"Oh bother you!" Isabel apostrophised him mentally. "You're not
the grandson of a duke anyhow. I expect you would be nicer if you
were."

She folded her arms on the gate and gazed across the Plain. The
village below was not far off, but they could see nothing of it,
buried as it was in the river-valley and behind a green arras of
beech leaves: in every other direction, far as the eye could see,
leagues of feathery pale grass besprinkled with blue and yellow
flowers went away in ribbed undulations, occasionally rolling up
into a crest on which a company of fir trees hung like men on
march. The sun was pale and smudged, the sky veiled: on its
silken pallor floated, here and there, a blot of dark low cloud,
and the clear distances presaged rain.

"May I--?" Lawrence took out his cigarettes. Isabel gave a
grudging assent. She could not understand how any one could be
willing to taint the sweet summering air that had blown over so
many leagues of grass and flowers. "Dare I offer you one?"
Lawrence asked, tendering his case. It was of gold, and bore his
monogram in diamonds. Isabel eyed it scornfully. Jack Bendish's
was only silver and much scratched and dinted into the bargain.
Now Jack Bendish was the grandson of a duke.

"'No thank you," said Miss Stafford. "I detest smoking."

To this Lawrence made no reply at all, no doubt, thought Isabel,
because he did not consider it worth one. She was proportionally
surprised and a trifle flattered when he replaced the cigarette
to which he had just helped himself. "'The young girl had not
realized her own power. She was only just coming into her
woman's kingdom. Her heart beat faster and a vermilion blush
dyed her pale cheek."' Isabel's favourite authors were Stevenson
and Mr. Kipling, but her mental rubric insisted on clothing itself
in the softer style of Molly Bawn.

"I don't detest other people's smoking," she explained in a
rather penitent tone.

"Let's get out on the downs," said Lawrence. He swung the gate
to and fro for her, then took off his hat and strolled slowly by
her side through the rustling grass. "Really," he said, more to
himself than to her, "there are places in England that are very
well worth while."

"Worth while what?"

"Er--worth coming to see. I suppose there isn't much shooting
to be had except