She was now to wait a whole quarter of an hour.

‘Sit down and read,’ said Lydia, who had herself begun to sew in the usual methodical way.

Thyrza pretended to obey.  For two minutes she sat still, then asked how they were to know when a quarter of an hour had passed.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said the other.  ’Sit quiet, there’s a good baby, and I’ll buy you a cake next time we go out.’

Thyrza drew in her breath—­and somehow the time was lived through.

‘Now I think you may go,’ Lydia said.

Thyrza seemed to have become indifferent.  She turned over a page of her book, and at length rose very slowly.  Lydia watched her askance; she thought she saw signs of timidity.  But Thyrza presently moved to the door and went downstairs with her lightest step.

Gilbert had told her not to knock.  Her hand was on the knob some moments before she ventured to turn it.  She heard Egremont laughing —­his natural laugh which was so attractive—­and then there fell a silence.  She entered.

No, Gilbert had not seated his visitor in the easy chair; that must be reserved for someone of more importance.  Egremont rose with a look of pleasure.

‘You know Miss Trent already?’ Gilbert said to him.

Thyrza drew near.  She did not hear very distinctly what Egremont was saying, but certainly he was offering to shake hands.  Then Gilbert placed the easy chair in a convenient position, and she did her best to sit as she always did.  Her manner was not awkward—­it was impossible for her to be awkward—­but she was afraid of saying something that ‘wasn’t grammar,’ and to Egremont’s agreeable remarks she replied shortly.  Yet even this only gave her an air of shyness which was itself a grace.  When Grail had entered into the conversation she was able to collect herself.

Gilbert said presently:  ’Miss Trent is going to take Bunce’s child to Eastbourne to-morrow, to Mrs. Ormonde’s.’

‘Indeed!’ Egremont exclaimed.  ’I was there on Wednesday and heard that the child was coming.  But this arrangement hadn’t been made then, I think?’

‘No.  Somebody else was to have gone, but she has found she can’t.’

‘You will be glad to know Mrs. Ormonde, I’m sure,’ Egremont said to Thyrza.

‘And I’m glad to go to the seaside,’ Thyrza returned.  ’I’ve never seen the sea.’

’Haven’t you?  How I wish I could have your enjoyment of to-morrow, then!’

Mrs. Grail was knitting.  She said:  ’I think you have voyaged a great deal, sir?’

It led to talk of travel.  Egremont was drawn into stories of East and West.  Ah, how good it was to get out of the circle of social prophecy!  It was like breathing the very mid Atlantic sky to talk gaily and freely of things wherein no theory was involved, which left aside every ideal save that of joyous living.  Thyrza listened.  He—­he before her—­had trodden lands whereof the names were to her like echoes from fairy tales; he had passed days and nights on the bosom of the great sea, which she looked forward to beholding almost with fear; he had seen it in tempest, and the laughing descriptions he gave of vast green rolling mountains made to her inward sight an awful reality.