And gradually she began to perceive that this was the attitude towards her that he had decided to assume.  What it veiled she knew not, nor did she inquire.  It was enough for her that hostilities had ceased.  Nick apparently was bestowing his energies elsewhere.

Midsummer passed, and a July of unusual heat drew on.  Dr. Jim and his wife and boys had departed to Switzerland.  Nick and Olga had elected to remain at Redlands.  They were out all day long in the motor or dogcart, on horseback or on foot.  Life was one perpetual picnic to Olga just then, and she was not looking forward to the close of the summer holidays when, so her father had decreed, she was to return to her home and the ordinary routine.  Nick’s plans were still unsettled though he spoke now and then of a prospective return to India.  He must in any case return thither, so he once told her, whether he decided to remain or not.  It was not a pleasant topic to Olga, and she always sought to avoid any allusion to it.  After the fashion of children, she lived in the present, and enjoyed it to the full:  bathing with Muriel every morning, and spending the remainder of the day in Nick’s society.  The friendship between these two was based upon complete understanding.  They had been comrades as long as Olga could remember.  Given Nick, it was very seldom that she desired any one besides.

Muriel had ceased to marvel over this strange fact.  She had come to realise that Nick was, and always must be, an enigma to her.  In the middle of July, when the heat was so intense as to be almost intolerable, Daisy received a pressing invitation to visit an old friend, and to go yachting on the Broads.  She refused it at first point-blank; but Muriel, hearing of the matter before the letter was sent, interfered, and practically insisted upon a change of decision.

“It is the very thing for you,” she declared.  “Brethaven has done its best for you.  But you want a dose of more bracing air to make you quite strong again.  It’s absurd of you to dream of throwing away such an opportunity.  I simply won’t let you do it.”

“But how can I possibly leave you all alone?” Daisy protested.  “If the Ratcliffes were at home, I might think of it, but—­”

“That settles it,” Muriel announced with determination.  “I never heard such nonsense in my life.  What do you think could possibly happen to me here?  You know perfectly well that a couple of weeks of my own society would do me no harm whatever.”

So insistent was she, that finally she gained her point, and Daisy, albeit somewhat reluctantly, departed for Norfolk, leaving her to her own devices.

The heat was so great in those first days of solitude that Muriel was not particularly energetic.  Apart from her early swim with Olga, and an undeniably languid stroll in the evening, she scarcely left the precincts of the cottage:  No visitors came to her.  There were none but fisher-folk in the little village.  And so her sole company consisted of Daisy’s ayah and the elderly English cook.