"Oh, Guy," Pauline asked, anxiously, "I suppose we ought not to come here?"
"Why on earth not?"
"Don't be angry. But the idea just flashed through my mind that perhaps Mother wouldn't like us to come here very often."
He sighed deeply.
"Really, sometimes I wonder what is the good of being engaged. Are we for ever to be hemmed in by the conventions of a place like Wychford?"
"Oh, but I expect Mother wouldn't mind, really," said Pauline, reassuring herself and him. "I'm always liable to these fits of doubt. Sometimes I feel quite weighed down by the responsibility of being grown up."
She laughed at herself, and the laughter ringing through the hollow house seemed to return and mock her with a mirthless echo.
"Oh, Guy!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Guy, I wish I hadn't laughed then! Did you hear how strangely it seemed as if the house laughed back at me?"
She had gripped his arm, and Guy, startled by her gesture, exclaimed rather irritably that she ought to control her nerves.
"Well, don't let's stay in this room. I don't like the green light that the ivy is giving your face."