Of course society could not quite be baffled so:  mornings brought carriage after carriage, and evenings a run upon the door.  Mr. Falkirk had little peace of his life, unless it were a reposeful thing for him to sit by and see the play.

Between whiles this winter, Hazel did a great deal of thinking:  even German could not crowd it out.  She knew, the minute she had said she would come to town, that she wished something could step in and keep her at Chickaree; or at least she knew that she was leaving more there than she had counted upon; and the knowledge chafed her.  It was all very well to like—­somebody—­(name of course unknown)—­to a certain degree; but when the liking made itself into bonds and ties and hindrances, then Miss Wych rebelled.  She brought up all sorts of questions in the most unattractive shape, to find them suited with answers that could find no reply.  It was simply unbearable, she urged upon herself, this being held in and watched and restricted,—­very unbearable!  Only, somehow, the person who did it all, was not.  And the doubt whether life would be worth having, in such guardianship, started a more difficult point:  what would it be worth without?  And the mental efforts to shake herself into clear order, just seemed, as sometimes happens, to tie three knots where there was one before.

‘It will go after a while,’ she said, twisting herself about under the new form of loneliness and unrest which possessed her when she got to town.  And it did:  deeper in.

Mr. Falkirk, blind bat that he was (for a sharp-sighted man), was not discontented with his winter.  He had Wych Hazel to himself, and she gave him no more trouble than he liked by the force of old associations.  He watched the play in which she was so prominent and so pretty a figure, and found it amusing.  It seemed safe play, so far; the fort that he was set to keep seemed quite secure from any attacks that presently threatened; and Mr. Falkirk had no suspicion that its safety was owing to a garrison within the walls.  The outside he knew he watched well.  It was a very quiet winter, indeed, except at such times as Miss Kennedy’s doors were open to all comers; but Mr. Falkirk did not find fault with that.  He had never been garrulous in his ward’s company or in any other.  Certainly he liked to hear her talk; and he knew that she talked far less than usual, when they were alone; but he argued with himself that Wych Hazel was growing older, was seriously engaging herself in study, after other than a school-girl’s fashion; and that all this winter’s development was but the sweet maturing of the fruit which in growing mature was losing somewhat of its liveliness of flavour.

They were alone one evening, rather past the middle of the winter.  It was not one of Miss Kennedy’s at-home nights; and in a snug little drawing-room the two were seated on opposite sides of the tea service.  A fire of soft coal burning luxuriously; thick curtains drawn; warm-coloured paperhangings on the walls; silver bright in the gaslight, and Mr. Falkirk’s evening papers ready at his hand.  To-night Mr. Falkirk rather neglected them, and seemed to be in a meditative mood.