As she finished speaking Henrietta stepped across to the sofa and sat down.  The airy perfection of her appearance lent point to the plaintive character of this concluding sentence.  The hot day, the summer costume—­possibly the shaded room also—­combined to strip away a good ten years from her record.  Any hardness, any faint sense of annoyance, which Damaris experienced at the abruptness of her guest’s intrusion melted.  Henrietta in her existing aspect, her existing mood proved irresistible.  Our tender-hearted maiden was charmed by her and coerced.

“But General Frayling is better, isn’t he?” she asked, also taking her place upon the sofa.  “You are not any longer in any serious anxiety about him, darling Henrietta?  All danger is past?”

“Oh, yes—­he is better of course, or how could I be here?  But I have received a shock that makes me dread the future.”

Which was true, though in a sense other than that in which her hearer comprehended it.  For the studious atmosphere of the room reacted upon Henrietta, as did its many silent testimonies to Sir Charles Verity’s constant habitation.  This was his workshop.  She felt acutely conscious of him here, nearer to him in idea and in sentiment than for many years past.  The fact that he did still work, sought new fields to conquer, excited both her admiration and her regrets.  He disdained to be laid on the shelf, got calmly and forcefully down off the shelf and spent his energies in fresh undertakings.  Once upon a time she posed as his Egeria, fancying herself vastly in the part.  During the Egerian period she lived at a higher intellectual and emotional level than ever before or since, exerting every particle of brain she possessed to maintain that level.  The petty interests of her present existence, still more, perhaps, the poor odd and end of a yellow little General in his infinitely futile sick-bed, shrank to a desolating insufficiency.  Surely she was worthy—­had, anyway, once been worthy—­of better things than that?  The lavender dress, notwithstanding its still radiantly uncrumpled condition, came near losing its spell.  No longer did she trust in it as in shining armour.  Her humour soured.  She instinctively inclined to revenge herself upon the nearest sentient object available—­namely to stick pins into Damaris.

“Sweetest child,” she said, “you can’t imagine how much this room means to me through its association with your father’s wonderful book.—­Oh! yes, I know a lot about the book.  Colonel Carteret has not failed to advertise his acquaintance with it.  But, what have I said?”

For at mention of that gentleman’s name Damaris, so she fancied, changed colour, the bloom fading upon her cheeks, while her glance became reserved, at once proud and slightly anxious.

“Is it forbidden to mention the wonderful book at this stage of its development?  Though even if it were,” she added, with a rather impish laugh, looking down at and fingering the little bunch of trinkets, attached to a long gold chain, which rested in her lap—­“Carteret would hardly succeed in holding his peace.  Speak of everything, sooner or later, he must.”