Anne had been vexed, and Majendie angry with her; but anger and vexation could not live in sight of the pure, tremulous, eager soul of love that looked at them out of Edith’s eyes.

“What a skimpy honeymoon you’ve had,” she said.  “Why did you go and cut it short like that?  Was it just because of me?”

In one sense it was because of her.  Anne was helpless before her question; but Majendie rose to it.

“I say—­the conceit of her!  No, it wasn’t just because of you.  Anne agreed with me about Scarby.  And we’re not cutting our honeymoon short, we’re spinning it out.  We’re going to have another one, some day, in a nicer place.”

“Anne didn’t like Scarby, after all?”

“No, I knew she wouldn’t.  And she lived to own that I was right.”

“That,” said Edith, laughing, “was a bad beginning.  If I’d been you, Anne, whether I was right or not, I’d never have owned that he was.”

“Anne,” said Majendie, “is never anything but just.  And this time she was generous.”

Edith’s hand was on the sleeve of Majendie’s coat, caressing it.  She looked up at Anne.

“And what,” said she, “do you think of my little brother, on the whole?”

“I think he says a great many things he doesn’t mean.”

“Oh, you’ve found that out, have you?  What else have you discovered?”

The gay question made Anne’s eyelids drop like curtains on her tragedy.

“That he means a great many things he doesn’t say?  Is that it?”

Majendie, becoming restive under the flicker of Edith’s cheerful tongue, withdrew the arm she cherished.  Edith felt the nervousness of the movement; her glance turned from her brother’s face to Anne’s, rested there for a tense moment, and then veiled itself.

At that moment they both knew that Edith had abandoned her glad assumption of their happiness.  The blessings of them all were upon Nanna as she came in with the tea-tray.

Nanna was sly and shy and ceremonial in her bearing, but under it there lurked the privileged audacity of the old servant, and (as poor Majendie perceived) the secret, terrifying gaiety of the hymeneal devotee.  The faint sound of giggling on the staircase penetrated to the room.  It was evident that Nanna was preparing some horrid and tremendous rite.

She set her tray in its place by Edith’s couch, and cleared a side table which she had drawn into a central and conspicuous position.  The three, as if humouring a child in its play, feigned a profound ignorance of what Nanna had in hand.

She disappeared, suppressed the giggling on the stairs, and returned, herself in jubilee let loose.  She carried an enormous plate, and on the plate Anne’s wedding-cake with all its white terraces and towers, and (a little shattered) the sugar orange blossoms and myrtles of its crown.  She stood it alone on its table of honour, and withdrew abruptly.