Lying sleepless on her bed that night with her eyes open in the dark she evolved a new plan that would not only give her the advantage of choosing the site of the coming struggle, but would eliminate the uncertain element of Considine and probably provide her with evidence to strengthen her charge. This change of plan involved a duplicity against which her straightforward nature rebelled, but with Arthur's future at stake she would have stopped at nothing. After breakfast on the Monday morning she went to Considine in his study, thanked him for his kind consideration, and confessed that she had been needlessly alarmed. Considine gracefully accepted this confession and the implied apology, assuring her once more that there was really nothing to worry about. Then, very carefully she made another suggestion. It was usual at Lapton for the pupils to go home for a long week-end at half term. She wondered if Mrs. Considine would like to come back to Overton with Arthur? The rest and change would do her good, and it would be interesting for Gabrielle, who had seen so little of England, to visit Cotswold. Mrs. Payne promised to take great care of her. She gave her invitation in a way that suggested that it was an attempt to make amends for her suspicions. It conveyed at the same time an implicit confidence and an anxiety to please.
Considine tumbled headlong into her trap. He thanked her for her invitation, saying that he had no objection, but that Gabrielle, of course, must decide for herself. His tone made it clear that such a visit must be regarded as a condescension. The Halbertons, he said, had been begging Gabrielle for a long time to spend a week with them, but she was devoted to Lapton.
"At any rate I may ask her?" said Mrs. Payne.
"Certainly, certainly—you'll find her in the garden."
Mrs. Payne was in some doubt as to what Gabrielle's answer would be.
She moved to the proposal obliquely, feeling like a conspirator, and one so unused to conspiracy that her manner was bound to betray her. They began by talking about the gardens at Overton, the beauty of Cotswold stone, the essential difference of her country from that in which Lapton lay.
"You can't know England," she said, "until you've seen the Vale of
Evesham."
She didn't care twopence ha'penny for the Vale of Evesham—she was just talking for time. Gabrielle listened to her very quietly, and Mrs. Payne took her silence for evidence that she was playing her hand badly. This flustered her. She became conscious of the fact that nature had built her too roughly for diplomacy. Not daring to hedge any longer she blurted out her invitation, and Gabrielle, instantly delighted, accepted, transforming herself, in Mrs. Payne's mind from a subtle designing creature into something very like a victim. So, for one moment she appeared; but in the next Mrs. Payne felt nothing but exultation at the successful beginning of her plan.
"Arthur has told me that there are nightingales at Overton," said Gabrielle dreamily. "I wonder if I shall hear one? There are no nightingales in Ireland or in this part of England." And although Mrs. Payne could hardly accept an interest in ornithology for explanation of her readiness to come to Overton, she was quick to promise that nightingales should be in full song at the next weekend.
Thus having laid her plans, she resisted, though with difficulty, all her impulses to continue her search for evidence. It was hard to do so, for all through the evening Gabrielle and Arthur were together in her presence, and she found it impossible not to watch them out of the corner of her eye or strain her ears to catch what they were saying; but she realised that the least slip at this stage might ruin her chances of success, and devoted her attention or as much of it as she could muster, to Considine. Next morning, with a sense of successful strategy, she returned to Overton by an early train.