And Sarratt laughed out, remembering some further items of the conversation on the stairs.

‘Whom are you discussing?’ said a cold voice in the background.

It was Bridget Cookson’s voice, and the husband and wife turned to greet her.  The day was balmy—­June at its best.  But Bridget as she came in had the look of someone rasped with east wind.  Nelly noticed too that since her marriage, Bridget had developed an odd habit of not looking her—­or George—­straight in the face.  She looked sideways, as though determined to avoid the mere sight of their youth and happiness.  ’Is she going to make a quarrel of it all our lives?’ thought Nelly impatiently.  ’And when George is so nice to her!  How can she be so silly!’

‘We were talking about our visitor who has just left,’ said Sarratt, clearing a chair for his sister-in-law.  ’Ah, you came from the other direction, you just missed him.’

’The man’—­said Nelly—­’who was so awfully polite to me on Saturday—­Sir William Farrell.’

Bridget’s countenance lost its stiffness at once—­became eager and alert.

‘What did he come for?’

‘To bring us permission to use the boat for a week,’ said Nelly.  ‘Wasn’t it decent of him?—­and to do it so quick!’

‘Oh, that’s the Farrell way—­always was,’ said Bridget complacently, as though she had the family in her pocket.  ’When they think of a thing it’s done.  It’s hit or miss.  They never stop to think.’

Sarratt looked at his sister-in-law with a covert amusement.  It was a left-handed remark.  But she went on—­while Nelly finished the packing of the luncheon-basket—­pouring out a flood of gossip about the Farrells’s place near Cockermouth, their great relations, their wealth, their pictures, and their china, while Sarratt walked up and down, fidgeting with his mouth, and inwardly thanking his stars that his Nelly was not the least like her sister, that she was as refined and well-bred, as Bridget was beginning to seem to him vulgar and tiresome.  But he realised that there was a personality in the tall harsh woman; that she might be formidable; and once or twice he found himself watching the curious side-long action of her head and neck, and the play of her eyes and mouth, with a mingling of close attention and strong dislike.  He kept his own counsel however; and presently he heard Bridget, who had so far refused all their invitations to join their walks or excursions, rather eagerly accepting Nelly’s invitation to go with them to Sir William’s Loughrigg cottage.  She knew all about it apparently, and said it was ‘a gem of a place!’ Sir William kept an old butler and his wife there—­pensioned off—­who looked after him when he came.  ‘Everything’s tiny,’ said Bridget with emphasis—­’but perfect!  Sir William has the most exquisite taste.  But he never asks anybody to go there.  None of the neighbours know him.  So of course they say its “side,” and he gives himself airs.  Anyway, Nelly, you may think yourselves highly honoured—­’