'Anthony, you know that line—
"I do not understand, I love,"'
she said; 'now, in how many languages can you conjugate those verbs?'
But he did not look up, and nervousness made her tones too buoyant. He never saw the light in her eyes which would at last have answered the question in his.
'In nine languages and a dozen dialects,' he said lightly.
She had failed to convey her meaning. Her lips closed. She shut her eyes, feeling for a moment faint and tired. When she wished him good-bye, he thought she looked at him strangely. But he did not guess the truth or know that he had failed to take the tide 'at the flood.' In a few days she ceased to wonder what was truth.
Shortly afterwards, Tremenheere's sister, Theodosia Kerr, with whom she corresponded regularly, perceiving listlessness in her letters and an exasperating resignation in his, threw herself into the breach by proposing that she should travel with her and her husband. Kerr was delicate, and after a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean, was going to winter in Jersey. The plan took Cynthia's fancy. She had never travelled, discovered she had a great wish to do so, and was speedily on her way to join their yacht in Southampton Water. Mrs. Kerr, in her superior wisdom of married woman, meant to give her what she spoke of to her husband as 'a good shaking-up,' and then have Tremenheere quietly out to Jersey in autumn; the result was to be all that everybody could wish!
Three months later news reached Lafer Hall which struck consternation into Mrs. Hennifer's soul, and sent her over to Old Lafer to see Mrs. Severn at once. The consequence was that a few hours after Mrs. Severn was again at the Mires.
