“Well, so have you, I dare say!” says Tita.

“I expect we all have,” says Margaret Knollys, laughing.  “Still, you know, Tita, it’s not a pretty word.”

“Very good; I shan’t say it again,” says Tita, the mutinous little face of a moment ago now lovely with love.

She has come back from her honeymoon quite as fond of Margaret as when she started.

It is now the middle of September; outside on the lawn the shadows are wandering merrily from tree to tree.  The sun is high, but little clouds running across it now and again speak of sharp rains to come.

    “The air so soft, the pines whispering so low,
    The dragon-flies, like fairy spears of steel,
    Darting or poised.”

All these speak of the glad heat that still remains, though summer itself is but a dream that is gone.

Tita’s honeymoon is at an end.  It had seemed to her delightful.  She had taken but a child’s view of it.  Maurice had been so kind, so good, so different from that nasty old uncle.  He had been so good, indeed, that when he asked her to come first to see his mother (Lady Rylton had made quite a point of this in her letters to him; the county might think it so odd if the young wife did not appear anxious to fly into her arms on her return), she had said “Yes” quite willingly, and with a grateful little glance.  He had done so much for her, she must do something for him.  But she hated going back to The Place, for all that.  She wanted to go straight to her own old home, her beautiful Oakdean, without a single stop.

She has been at The Place now for a week.  Margaret Knollys and Randal Gower are the only two guests, Mrs. Bethune being on a visit to some friends in Scotland.  The shooting here is excellent, and Sir Maurice has enjoyed himself immensely.  Sir Maurice’s wife has, perhaps, not enjoyed herself quite so much.  But nothing, so far, has occurred to render her in the very least unhappy.  If the clouds be black, she has not seen them.  Her young soul has uplifted itself, and is soaring gaily amongst the stars.  In her ignorance she tells herself she is quite, quite happy; it is only when we love that we doubt of happiness, and thus sometimes (because of our modesty, perhaps) we gain it.  Tita has never known what love means.

There has been a little fret, a little jar to-day, between her and Lady Rylton.  The latter’s memory is good, and she has never forgotten what Maurice—­in a moment’s folly—­had said of Tita’s determination not to live with her at The Place.  It is Lady Rylton’s rôle to return to all, in extra good measure, such injuries as she may judge herself to have received.

Tita naturally, in this small warfare, is at a disadvantage.  She has forgotten her words, but even if she remembered them, would not for a moment suspect Maurice of having repeated them.  And, indeed, Maurice, as we all know, had done it in a heated moment with best intent towards his small betrothed; besides, Tita at this time—­so heartwhole and so débonnaire—­gives no thinking to anything save the getting out into the fresh air in these uncertain days, and the breaking in of a young horse that Maurice has made her a present of.  Danger walks behind her, but she never turns her head; what has she to fear?