“I’ve just been telling Nance how beautiful I think Mrs. Wyeth is,” said Bernal.  “She’s rare, with that face of the low-browed Greek.  It’s one of the memories I shall take back to my Eve-less Eden.”

“She is beautiful,” said Nancy.  “Of course her nose is the least bit thin and long, but it rather adds zest to her face.  Now I must dress for dinner.”

When Nancy had gone, Bernal, who had been speaking with a marked lightness of tone, turned to Allan with an equally marked seriousness.

“Old chap, you know about that money of mine—­of Grandfather’s?”

Allan instantly became attentive.

“Of course, there’s no hurry about that—­you must take time to think it over,” he answered.

“But there is hurry!  I shouldn’t have waited so long to make up my mind.

“Then you have made up your mind?” questioned his brother, with guarded eagerness.

“Definitely.  It’s all yours, Allan.  It will help you in what you want to do.  And not having it will help me to do what I want to do—­make it simpler, easier.  Take it—­and for God’s sake be good to Nancy.”

“I can’t tell you how you please me, Bernal.  Not that I’m avid for money, but it truly seems more in accord with what must have been grandfather’s real wish.  And Nancy—­of course I shall be good to her—­though at times she seems unable to please me.”

There was a sanctified displeasure in his tone, as he spoke of Nancy.  It caused Bernal to turn upon him a keen, speculative eye, but only for a moment.  And his next words had to do with matters tangible.  “To-morrow I’ll do some of the business that can be done here.  Then I’ll go up to Edom and finish the transfers that have to be made there.”  After a brief hesitation, he added:  “Try to please her a bit, Allan.  That’s all.”

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH THE MIRROR IS HELD UP TO HUMAN NATURE

When, the next day, Nancy went to pay her promised visit to Mrs. Eversley, the rectory was steeped in the deep household peace of mid-afternoon.  Both Allan and Bernal had gone out soon after luncheon, while Aunt Bell had withdrawn into the silence, there to meditate the first letters of the alphabet of the inexpressible, to hover about the pleasant line that divides the normal from the subliminal.

Though bruised and torn, Nancy was still grimly upright in the eye of duty, still a worthy follower of orthodox ways.  Buried in her own eventful thoughts in that mind-world where love is born and dies, where beliefs rise and perish but no sound ever disturbs the stillness, she made her way along the shaded side of the street toward the Wyeth residence.  Not until she had passed several doors beyond the house did she recall her errand, remember that her walk led to a goal, that she herself had matters in hand other than thinking, thinking, thinking.