Helen and Elizabeth laughed at her qualms. They could not believe that trousers seemed more modest to Nancy than the very ordinary rough-and-tumble dress in which they had clothed her. As they predicted, her shyness soon passed, her shyness before all except Nasmith. On him her eyes persisted in lingering, yet she always flushed when he turned to look at her. The enigma of the couplet her father had written still drew her fancy toward him while it made her as quickly anxious to hide. And Nasmith, much as he tried to be cool, could never disguise his interest in this pale stranger who for the breadth of a year had lived like an incessant trouble in his brain.
His nieces, however, for the first few days took command of their guest. They postponed talk of Nancy's marriage,—they could not bear to broach the subject nor to think of it,—and gave up the time to picnics and swimming parties and tennis. Nancy enjoyed the long walks, the start in the cool of the morning, the chattering climb to some far-off temple where the trees provided shade and the bushes, tangling among boulders, gave covert in which the girls swiftly stripped off their clothes and climbed into swimming suits for an hour's diving and splashing in a clear warm pool. Though she envied them, she never could quite be persuaded to join them. Edward emerged fearlessly and was soon out with the men, swimming like a young spaniel, but his sister allowed herself only once to be led charily to the brink of the pool. She enjoyed watching the others at sport, the glossy figures of the girls as they climbed dripping on to the rocks, the antics of Beresford, who swam under water and seized his shrieking victims by the ankles, Nasmith's supple strength, which helped him, without apparent effort, to outdistance the whole of them in the length of his dives and the swiftness of his stroke through the water.
Then came tiffin, spread on a white cloth beneath the pines. There was a fastidious vein in Mrs. Ferris's nature which would not let her dispense with what she called the decencies of life, so that these meals, to the scoffing amusement of her brother, never lacked the cloth and the dishes or the glittering silver—she would die from starvation rather than eat without them, Nasmith declared. Nancy heard the approving comment of the old amah, who was telling the other servants that it was just this way that the first Mrs. Herrick, the real Hai t'ai-t'ai, used to serve picnics in those palmy days when she reigned as first Lady of Amoy. Nancy tried hard and gravely to connect this actual link with the legend of her mother.
Luncheon was followed invariably by a long, drowsy nap. This Nancy liked best of all, for she could stretch herself luxuriously in the shade of the bushes and talk idly with Helen and Elizabeth till the sun, shining through the leaves, filled her veins with its warmth and beguiled her into sleep. The birds sang more lazily, the breeze barely stirred the pines, the water went deviating through the rocks with a silver tinkle, the heat glimmered before her half-shut eyes; she would wake to find it was tea time and the girls hastily combing their hair or tightening the garters round their stockings. Then she too would jump up, shake her dress free of pine needles, dash cold water into her face, and hurry to take her place beside the festive cloth.
At tea time the party was always at its gayest. The picnickers lay or sat cross-legged on the ground and watched the golden sparkle of the tea as it was poured into cup after cup. The steaming liquid refreshed their spirits, gave them appetite for sandwiches and dainty frosted cakes. Nancy was so happy that she did not think of herself as a stranger but fell easily into family ways and smiled at the family jokes, at the teasing of the twins and their changeable-mooded sister, Patricia, who was blossoming into a child of mercurially gay and serious fancies. Edward adapted himself even more quickly; he both teased and was teased, flinging off banter as he flung the spray from his forehead when he was swimming.
He could swagger and brag up to the last inch of David's schoolboy manner. But Nancy, though she was a laughing partner to all this jesting, never quite became fair target for their jokes. Her destiny lurked, unspoken of yet not unregarded, in her eyes.
Nevertheless, she was braver than the others in putting it out of mind, and no one could have told, from watching her walk blithely home, now talking with one, now with another of the party, that a heavy doom hung over her, a doom which made the unpredictable future of her companions seem play by comparison. It was apparent, of course, how the interests and affection of the whole family hovered round her, but then she was singularly lovely; her grave beauty had been made to attract interest and affection.
She was enjoying herself, wholly careless of the passing of time, only content that days like these should go on forever. She looked eagerly for the lights of the bungalow gleaming through the trees, then the bustle, the washing, the changing of clothes for dinner. Such was the magic of the twins, who rifled their wardrobe between them, that she would appear in delicate silks trailing halfway to her ankles, a circle of amber beads flashing their fire at her throat, a ribbon of ivory satin half lost in her black hair, but always the pensive look in her eyes, her lips, her whole bearing, which suggested passion and desire so many ages older than the transient fashions she graced.
Nasmith watched her with hungry eyes and it was only Nancy's absorption in her two friends which kept his secret from being guessed. Her attention, for the moment, was gladly filled by the commonplaces which were such a luxurious novelty to her. The gramophone, the games, the bedroom gossip which trespassed on their sleep still made every evening exciting.
On Sunday they took her to the little Anglican church. They expected the occasion to be a great moment in her life, but they overestimated her capacity for religious feeling. The experience was neither more nor less than the many strange practices to which her eyes were being opened. Nancy had heard of the Christians,—she had been reminded that their religion had been her mother's,—but she felt no violent curiosity about their ways. It seemed natural enough that the foreigners should have their own religion, and one god the more was additional security in time of trouble. She thought the altar with its cross seemly enough, so far as she thought of it at all, but she was puzzled by the complications and the uncomfortable formality of the service and wondered why the priest wore vestments of funereal white and black. To the sermon she could give no response, having, even where she understood the sentences, not the faintest clue to its topic.