Mrs. Frothingham gently shook her head.  No trace of nervousness appeared in her today; manipulating the coloured silks, she only now and then put in a quiet word, but followed the talk with interest.

‘But I quite thought you had been to Australia,’ Alma resumed.  ’You see, it’s very theoretical, your admiration of the new countries.  And I believe you would rather die at once in England than go to live in any such part of the world.’

‘Weakness of mind, that’s all.’

’Still, you admit it.  That’s something gained.  You always smile at other people’s confessions, and keep your own mind mysterious.’

‘Mysterious?  I always thought one of my faults was over-frankness.’

‘That only shows how little we know ourselves.’

Harvey was reflecting on the incompleteness of his knowledge of Alma.  Intentionally or not, she appeared to him at this moment in a perfectly new light; he could not have pictured her so simple of manner, so direct, so placid.  Trouble seemed to have given her a holiday, and at the same time to have released her from self-consciousness.

‘But you have never told us,’ she went on, ’about your wanderings in France this summer.  English people don’t go much to that part, do they?’

’No.  I happened to read a book about it.  It’s the old fighting-ground of French and English —­ interesting to any one pedantic enough to care for such things.’

’But not to people born to be sheep-farmers.  And you had a serious illness. —­ Did Mr. Rolfe tell you, Mamma dear, that he nearly died at some miserable roadside inn?’

Mrs. Frothingham looked startled, and declared she knew nothing of it.  Harvey, obliged to narrate, did so in the fewest possible words, and dismissed the matter.

‘I suppose you have had many such experiences,’ said Alma.  ’And when do you start on your next travels?’

’I have nothing in view.  I half thought of going for the winter to a place in North Wales —­ Carnarvonshire, on the outer sea.’

The ladies begged for more information, and he related how, on a ramble with a friend last spring (it was Basil Morton), he had come upon this still little town between the mountains and the shore, amid a country shining with yellow gorse, hills clothed with larch, heathery moorland, ferny lanes, and wild heights where the wind roars on crag or cairn.

’No railway within seven miles.  Just the place for a pedant to escape to, and live there through the winter with his musty books.’

‘But it must be equally delightful for people who are not pedants!’ exclaimed Alma.

’In spring or summer, no doubt, though even then the civilised person would probably find it dull.’

’That’s your favourite affectation again.  I’m sure it’s nothing but affectation when you speak scornfully of civilised people.’

‘Scornfully I hope I never do.’

‘Really, Mamma,’ said Alma, with a laugh, ’Mr. Rolfe is in his very mildest humour today.  We mustn’t expect any reproofs for our good.  He will tell us presently that we are patterns of all the virtues.’