“You might, Anne.  It’s the only thing I can give you.  And what is it?  A scrubby two hundred acres.”

“It’s a thundering lot of land, Jerrold.  I can’t take it.”

“You must.  It isn’t enough, after all you’ve done for us.  I’d like to give you everything I’ve got; Wyck Manor and the whole blessed estate to the last turnip, and every cow and pig.  But I can’t do that.  And you used to say you wanted the Barrow Farm.”

“I wanted to rent it, Jerry darling.  I can’t let you give it me.”

“Why not?  I think it’s simply beastly of you not to.”

At that point Maisie had passed through the room with her flowers and he had called to her to help him.

“What are you two quarrelling about?” she said.

“Why, I want to give her the Barrow Farm and she won’t let me.”

“Of course I won’t let him.  A whole farm.  How could I?”

“I think you might, Anne.  It would please him no end.”

“She thinks,” Jerrold said, “she can go on doing things for us, but we mustn’t do anything for her.  And I say it’s beastly of her.”

“It is really, Anne darling.  It’s selfish.  He wants to give it you so awfully.  He won’t be happy if you won’t take it.”

“But a farm, a whole thumping farm.  It’s a big house and two hundred acres.  How can I take a thing like that?  You couldn’t yourself if you were me.”

Maisie’s little white fingers flickered over the blue delphiniums stacked in the blue-and-white Chinese jar.  Her mauve-blue eyes were smiling at Anne over the tops of the tall blue spires.

“Don’t you want to make him happy?” she said.

“Not that way.”

“If it’s the only way—?”

She passed out of the room, still smiling, to gather more flowers.  They looked at each other.

“Jerrold, I can’t stand it when she says things like that.”

“No more can I. But you know, she really does want you to take that farm.”

“Don’t you see why I can’t take it—­from you?  It’s because we’re lovers.”

“I should have thought that made it easier.”

“It makes it impossible.  I’ve given myself to you.  I can’t take anything.  Besides, it would look as if I’d taken it for that.”

“That’s an appalling idea, Anne.”

“It is.  But it’s what everybody’ll think.  They’ll wonder what on earth you did it for.  We don’t want people wondering about us.  If they once begin wondering they’ll end by finding out.”

“I see.  Perhaps you’re right.  I’m sorry.”

“It sticks out of us enough as it is.  I can’t think how Maisie doesn’t see it.  But she never will.  She’ll never believe that we—­”

“Do you want her to see it?”

“No, but it hurts so, her not seeing....  Jerrold, I believe that’s the punishment—­Maisie’s trusting us.  It’s the worst thing she could have done to us.”

“Then, if we’re punished we’re quits.  Don’t think of it, Anne darling.  Don’t let Maisie come in between us like that.”