in spite, too, of his greater care for costume and his increased employment of soap and water, Mavis was still enormously above him.  The aunt, a smooth-tongued little woman whom for a long time he regarded as implacably hostile to his suit, made him measure the height of the dividing space every time that he called at North Ride Cottage.  Plainly trying to crush him with the respectability both of herself and of her surroundings, she showed off all the presents from the Abbey—­the china and glass ornaments, the piano; the photographs of Mr. Barradine on horseback, of the late Lady Evelyn Barradine in her pony-carriage, of Mr. Barradine’s guests with guns waiting to shoot pheasants.  And she conducted him into and out of the two choicely upholstered rooms which on certain occasions Mr. Barradine deigned to occupy for a night or a couple of nights—­for instance, when the Abbey House was being painted and he fled the smell of paint, when the Abbey House was closed and he came down from London to see his agent on business, when he wanted to make an early start at the cub-hunting and he couldn’t trust the servants of the Abbey House to rouse him if he slept there.

“Last time of all,” and Mrs. Petherick rubbed her hands together and smiled insinuatingly, “he paid me the pretty compliment of saying that I made him more comfortable than he ever is in his own house.  I said, ’If we can’t let you feel at home here, it’s something new among the Pethericks.’”

It seemed that the bond between the humble family and the great one had existed for several generations.  It was a tradition that the Pethericks should serve the Barradines.  Mavis’ grandfather had been second coachman at the Abbey; her aunt’s husband had been valet to Mr. Everard and made the grand tour of Europe with him; aunt herself was of the Petherick blood, and had been a housemaid at the Abbey.  It also seemed to be a tradition that the acknowledgment made by the Barradines for this fidelity of the Pethericks should be boundless in its extent.

Aunt spoke of the Right Honorable Everard as though she held him like a purse in her pocket, and Dale at one period had some queer thoughts about this old widow of a dead servant for whom so much had been done and who yet expected so much more.  She said Mr. Barradine had charged himself with the musical training of another niece, and he would probably not hesitate to send Mavis to Vienna for the best masters, should she presently display any natural talent.  Her cousin Ruby sang like an angel from the age of ten; but Mavis so far exhibited more inclination for instrumental music.

“She’ll belie her name, though, if she doesn’t pipe up some day, won’t she?”

When Dale secured his appointment at Portsmouth, he and Mavis were not engaged.  She said, “Auntie simply won’t hear of it.”

“Not now,” he said.  “But later, when I’ve made my way, she’ll come round.  Mav, will you wait for me?