She soon found out that her imagination had not been prophetic.  Immediately after drinking tea—­it was a few minutes past six—­on the evening of the arrival of Herbert, she went out of doors to find him and give him a lecture on the need there was for him to refrain from waiting about the garden far from the other guests until she, Ella, could go on the river with him for a quiet drift before dinner; the other guests would certainly think him worse than rude, she was ready to explain.  The explanation was not needed; she learned that Mr. Courtland had just taken Miss Ayrton out in one of the punts.

Of course she was pleased—­after an hour by the side of her husband to perceive that Herbert had lost no time in making an effort to prove to her how amply he recognized her object in asking him to The Mooring.  But at the same time, if pleased, she was also surprised.  At any rate, she would take good care that he did not lapse in his attentions to Phyllis; as she knew lovers are but too apt to lapse, especially when they begin well.  She would, for instance, send him from her side in the garden after dinner, to walk with Phyllis up to the woods where a nightingale was said to be in the habit of singing when the lovely summer twilight had waned into the lovely summer night.  With the nightingale’s song in their ears, two ordinary young persons with no preconceived theories on the subject of love, have been known, she was well aware, to become lovers of the most aggressive type.  Yes, she had great hopes of the nightingale.

So, apparently, had Herbert Courtland.

After dinner there was smoking in the garden, some feeding of the peacocks on the terraces, while the blackbirds uttered protests against such an absorption by foreign immigrants of the bread that was baked for native consumption.  Then there was some talk of the nightingale.  One man suggested that it was a nightingale attached to a music box which the enterprise of a local inn had hired for the summer months, sending a man to wind it up every night for the attraction of visitors.  Then it was that Mr. Courtland said he knew a spot where a nightingale had been in the habit of singing long ago, when his explorations of the Thames River had preceded those of the Fly River.  He found three persons who expressed their willingness to accept his guidance on the spot, if it were not too far away.  One of these was Phyllis, the other two were notorious lovers.  Off they started without hats or caps.

This Ella heard when she returned to the garden, whence she had been called away for ten minutes to interview a man who had an electric launch for sale.

The news, communicated to her by her husband in answer to her inquiry, had surprised her.  That was why she had given a little laugh with a tone of derision in it when she had said: 

“A nightingale!  How lovely!  I hope they may find it.  It shouldn’t prove so arduous as the quest of the meteor-bird.  I do hope that those children will not catch cold.  It is a trifle imprudent.”