Hearing which infectiously gay but quite unexpected sound, Miss Bilson stopped dead in the middle both of a nectarine and a sentence.

“What is the matter, Damaris?” she exclaimed.  “I was explaining our difficulty in securing sufficient conveyances for some of our party to and from Marychurch station.  I really do not see any cause for amusement in what I said.”

“There wasn’t anything amusing, dear Billy, I’m sure there wasn’t,” Damaris returned, the corners of her mouth still quivering and her eyes very bright.  “I beg your pardon.  I’m afraid I wasn’t quite attending.  I was thinking of something else.  You were speaking about the carriage horses, weren’t you?  Yes.”

But Theresa turned sulky.  She had been posing, planing in mid-air around the fair castles hope and ambition are reported to build there.  Her fat little feet were well off the floor, and that outbreak of laughter let her down with a bump.  She lost her head, lost her temper and her opportunity along with it, and fell into useless scolding.

“You are extremely inconsequent and childish sometimes, Damaris,” she said.  “I find it most trying when I attempt to talk to you upon practical subjects, really pressing subjects, and you either cannot or will not concentrate.  What can you expect in the future when you are thrown more on your own resources, and have not me—­for instance—­always to depend upon, if you moon through life like this?  It must lead to great discomfort not only for yourself but for others.  Pray be warned in time.”

Damaris turned in her chair at the head of the table.  A station not unconnected, in Theresa’s mind, with the internal ordering of those same air-built castles, and consistently if furtively coveted by her.  To Sir Charles’s chair at the bottom of the table, she dared not aspire, so during his absence reluctantly retained her accustomed place at the side.

“You need not wait any longer, Mary,” Damaris said, over her shoulder.

“Why?” Theresa began fussily, as the two maids left the room.

“Why?” Damaris took her up.  “Because I prefer our being alone during the remainder of this conversation.  I understand that you want to ask me about something to do with this excursion to Harchester.  What is it, please?”

“My dear Damaris,” the other protested, startled and scenting unexpected danger, “really your manner”—­

“And yours.—­Both perhaps would bear improvement.  But that is by the way.  What is it, please, you want?”

“Really you assert yourself”—­

“And you forget yourself—­before the servants, too, I do not like it at all.  You should be more careful.”

“Damaris,” she cried aghast, confounded to the verge of tears—­“Damaris!”

“Yes—­I am giving you my full attention.  Pray let us be practical,” the young girl said, sitting up tall and straight in the shaded lamp-light, the white dinner-table spread with gleaming glass and silver, fine china, fruit and flowers before her, the soft gloom of the long low room behind, all tender hint of childhood banished from her countenance, and her eyes bright now not with laughter but with battle.  “Pray let us finish with the subject of the choir treat.  Then we shall be free to talk about more interesting things.”