And then another figure, one of far greater importance and moment to herself than poor Jack Tosswill, came and challenged Enid Crofton to anxious attention.  How did she stand with regard to Godfrey Radmore?

She stopped in her pacing, and stared straight before her.  For the first time in her life she was quite at a loss as to what a man, of whom she was seeing a great deal, really felt about her.

Rosamund Tosswill was very young, and Enid secretly thought her very stupid, but there could be no doubt as to her essential truthfulness.  Now, a day or two ago, Rosamund had said:  “Isn’t it funny of Godfrey?  He told Janet when he first came here that he had made up his mind to remain a bachelor!”

And yet they two, she, Enid, and Godfrey, had had something tantamount to an emotional little scene the first time he had come to see her at The Trellis House.  True, it had only lasted two or three seconds, but while it lasted it had been intense.  Had Timmy Tosswill not burst into the room in that stupid, inopportune way, Radmore would have certainly taken her in his arms.  Though Radmore was no innocent, high-principled boy, even one kiss between them would have altered their whole attitude, the one to the other.  She would have seen to that.  In her heart she had cursed Timmy for his idiotic intrusion, and now she cursed him again.

Lately she had thought Radmore was becoming aware of Jack Tosswill’s growing absorption in her, and she had suspected, as well as hoped, that he was a trifle jealous.  Now jealousy, as Enid knew well, is a potent quickener of feeling between a man and a woman.  It was unfortunate that Radmore seemed to regard Jack Tosswill as a mere boy—­a rather tiresome, priggish boy.  Still, that had its good side.  Jack was only a very slight complication after all!

Again she cast a fleeting thought to Tremaine.  In a sense he was her real mate, her real soul, and, yes, body mate.  If only he wasn’t so poor!  She felt for a moment tempted to throw up everything—­to do what he had so urged her to do, what he was always writing and begging her to do.  That was to marry him quickly just before the end of his leave, and go out to India with him.  He wrote to her every day, and his last letter was in the little silk bag now hanging on her arm.

It was the kind of love-letter that Enid understood, and enjoyed receiving:  full of ardent, if rather commonplace, expressions, and of comparisons, very pleasant to her vanity, between her pretty self and the stupid, ugly women he said he was now meeting.  He had been with his people in Cornwall—­but for that he would of course have come down to see how she was getting on.  In this particular letter he announced that he was going to be in London very soon, and might he run down for a day?  He had added a question, chaffingly worded, and yet, as she well knew, seriously intended.  Did she think it would be improper for him to come and spend two or three days with her?  And now she told herself, very decidedly, that of course she couldn’t have him here—­in stupid, old-fashioned Beechfield.  It would be a tiresome, useless complication.  But why shouldn’t she go up to London for three or four days and have a good time with him there?