Marjolaine came slowly and dejectedly out of her house. She heard Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn's voice and glanced up at him, but even his wild and wonderful appearance failed to draw a smile from her. Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn could not retire, much as he would have liked to. He waved a conciliatory hair-brush at her, and cried with assumed cheerfulness, "Ah, Miss Marjory—! How do you do?" then in response to some remark from his wife, he turned and whispered peevishly, "I must speak to her; it's only polite. Don't snivel." He addressed Marjolaine again, deprecatorily, "You are looking a little pale."
Marjolaine drew herself up. It was intolerable that anybody should see she was in trouble.
"I never felt better in my life," she said defiantly.
"But more like the lily than the rose?" exclaimed Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn with a fine touch of lyricism; and then to Selina, "No; I am not talking nonsense! It was a quotation."
"How is Mrs. Brooke-Hoskyn this morning?" asked Marjolaine.
"In the highest spirits!" cried Mr. Brooke-Hoskyn. "My dear Selina," he explained, turning towards the room, "Miss Marjory is kind enough to ask after your health, and I am telling her you are in the highest spirits. Do—not—snivel—she 'll hear you!" To Marjolaine, with a ghastly smile, "Her gaiety is infectious; positively infectious!" Some hard object, thrown with unerring aim, caught him in the small of the back. "Oh, Lord!" he cried. "Excuse me, Miss Marjory; Selina has just remembered a joke she wishes to tell me. Thus the hours pass in innocent mirth and badinage. Excuse me!" He turned away. "You really are—!" he cried, almost viciously; and slammed the window, and disappeared.
But Marjolaine never smiled. She moved as one who had no particular object in life. She drifted instinctively towards the river-bank although she knew that strain her eyes as she might the little boat she had looked for all the week was now less likely than ever to appear. At one moment she seemed almost inclined to speak to the Eyesore; to ask him whether he had seen what she had so long been vainly looking for. But the Eyesore was at that instant impaling a worm, and was altogether too revolting. She stood a moment looking up and down the stream, and then turned away with a great sigh.
Mrs. Poskett's great yellow cat, Sempronius, was curled up in the sun just behind the Gazebo. Marjolaine looked at him. She and he were fast friends, and in happier times she would have had a friendly word for him and an affectionate caress. To-day, even that was too much of an effort. Fortunately Sempronius was asleep and did not notice her inattention.
Sir Peter Antrobus opened his upstair window and hung the osier cage with the thrush in it on its nail. He caught sight of the disconsolate little figure. "Missie, ahoy!" he roared, as though he were hailing a friendly craft in the offing. Marjolaine started.
"Oh, Sir Peter! You made me jump!"