‘You know the meaning of Tintajeux?—Tint-à-jeu in old Norman. You English in Cornwall say Tintagel—the Devil’s castle. A fit abode for us. Look at grandpapa! He quarrelled seven years ago with M. Noirmont, the rector of our next parish, over a Latin quantity. Never in this world will grandpapa speak again to that innocent old man.’
‘A wrong quantity is no jesting matter,’ observed Geoffrey Arbuthnot.
‘Then he has three daughters, my aunts. Neither of the three has spoken to the others or to him for five-and-twenty years. No vulgar quarrel to start with. “We Bartrands wage war on a grand Napoleonic scale,” says the Seigneur. “An exchange of reproachful epithets is sheer waste of brain-power.” The marriage of each sister in succession wounded the other sisters’ pride. All wounded grandpapa’s. It was quite simple.’
‘You colour highly, Miss Bartrand.’
‘I am giving you sketches from life. No colouring could be too high for showing up our Bartrand traits, the little faults of our virtues, as the French say, prettily.’
Geoffrey felt himself on the road to disenchantment. The girl might have marvellous eyes, a wealth of dusky hair, tones of liquid music, a sunburnt hand that was a poem. The heart within her was hard to the core. Linda Thorne, by hidden affinity, perhaps, was not so very far out in her judgments. Marjorie knew too much, had learned bitter lessons in human nature, not from books, but from keen reading of the men and women nighest to herself in blood.
‘Yes, we think too highly of our small talents. I, with my shallowness, to propose teaching a Bachelor of Arts anything! I ought to be grateful to Mr. Arbuthnot for condescending to read with such a pupil. Now, which three mornings in the week could you give me?’
He could give her Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. They gravely arranged their hours. They talked over the work—say, a book of Cicero, the two first books of Euclid—to be looked over before their first lesson. Then Geoffrey Arbuthnot rose to his feet. Putting on a staid and tuitional manner, he stated that his terms in Guernsey, would be five shillings, British currency, per hour.
Marjorie’s face grew one hot blaze of shame.
‘Oh! of course—please do not speak of money. It is far too little. It is an honour, I mean, for me to learn, and I am coming——’