The distinction was flattering.  Nancy yielded to the charm of his voice and conversed freely.  It began to seem not impossible that he found some pleasure in her society.  Now and then he dropped a word that made her pulses flutter; his eyes were constantly upon her face.

‘Don’t you go off into the country sometimes?’ he inquired, when she had turned homewards.

‘We are thinking of having a drive to-day.’

‘And I shall most likely have a ride; we may meet.’

Nancy ordered a carriage for the afternoon, and with her friends drove up the Teign valley; but they did not meet Tarrant.  But next morning he joined them on the pier, and this time Jessica had no choice but to present him to her mother.  Nancy felt annoyed that this should have come about; Tarrant, she supposed, would regard poor Mrs. Morgan with secret ridicule.  Yet, if that were his disposition, he concealed it perfectly; no one could have behaved with more finished courtesy.  He seated himself by Mrs. Morgan, and talked with her of the simplest things in a pleasant, kindly humour.  Yesterday, so he made known, he had ridden to Torquay and back, returning after sunset.  This afternoon he was going by train to Exeter, to buy some books.

Again he strolled about with Nancy, and talked of idle things with an almost excessive amiability.  As the girl listened, a languor crept upon her, a soft and delicious subdual of the will to dreamy luxury.  Her eyes were fixed on the shadows cast by her own figure and that of her companion.  The black patches by chance touched.  She moved so as to part them, and then changed her position so that they touched again—­so that they blended.

CHAPTER 5

Nancy had written to her father, a short letter but affectionate, begging him to let her know whether the improvement in his health, of which he had spoken before she left home, still continued.  The answer came without delay.  On the whole, said Mr. Lord, he was doing well enough; no need whatever to trouble about him.  He wrote only a few lines, but closed with ‘love to you, my dear child,’ an unwonted effusiveness.

At the same time there came a letter from Horace.

‘You will be surprised,’ it began, ’at the address I write from.  As you know, I had planned to go to Brighton; but on the day before my holiday commenced I heard from F. F., saying that she and Mrs. Peachey had had a quarrel, and she was tired of Brighton, and was coming home.  So I waited a day or two, and then, as I had half promised, I went to see Mrs. D. We had a long talk, and it ended in my telling her about F., and all the row there’s been.  Perhaps you will think I had better have kept it to myself, but Mrs. D. and I are on first-rate terms, and she seems to understand me better than any one I ever met.  We talked about my holiday, and she persuaded me to come to Scarborough, where she herself was going for a week or two.  It’s