n?'

Gerald looked down, laughing, but very unsympathetic, at the perilous
heel and pinched, distorted toe. 'Really, I can't say.'

'Do sit down, there is plenty of room, and tell me you aren't cross with
me.'

'I'm not at all cross with you, but I'm not going to sit down beside
you,' said Gerald. 'I'm going to take you and your ankle back to the
house and then find Miss Jakes and go on talking.'

'You may make _me_ cross,' said Lady Pickering, rising and leaning her
arm on his.

'I don't believe I shall. You really respect me for my strength of
character.'

'Wily creature!'

'Foolish child!' They were standing in the path, laughing at each other,
far from displeased with each other, and it was fortunate that neither
of them perceived among the trees Althea, passing again at a little
distance, and glancing round irrepressibly to see if Gerald had indeed
followed her; even Lady Pickering might have been slightly discomposed,
for when Gerald said 'Foolish child!' he completed the part expected of
him by lightly stooping his head and kissing her.

He then took Lady Pickering back to the house, established her in a
hammock, and set off to find Althea. He knew that he had kept her
waiting--if she had indeed waited. And he knew that he really was a
little cross with Frances Pickering; he didn't care to carry flirtation
as far as kissing.

Althea, however, was nowhere to be found. He looked in the house, heard
that she had been there but had gone out again; he looked in the garden;
he finally went back to the woods, an uncomfortable surmise rising; and
finding her nowhere there, he strolled on into the meadows. Then,
suddenly, he saw her, sitting on a rustic bench at a bend of the little
brook. Her eyes were bent upon the running water, and she did not look
up as he approached her. When he was beside her, her eyes met his,
reluctantly and resentfully, and he was startled to observe that she had
wept. His surmise returned. She must have seen him kiss Frances. Yet
even then Gerald did not know why it should make Miss Jakes weep that
he should behave like a donkey.

'May I sit down here?' he asked, genuinely grieved and genuinely anxious
to find out what the matter was.

'Certainly,' said Althea in chilly tones.

He was a little confused. It had something to do with the kissing, he
felt sure. 'Miss Jakes, I'm afraid you'll never believe me a serious
person,' he said.

'Why should you be serious?' said Althea.