His face was very near hers, and he was a son of Adam, like all the rest of us—­not a being of another sphere, as Frida was sometimes half tempted to consider him.  What might next have happened he himself hardly knew, for he was an impulsive creature, and Frida’s rich lips were full and crimson, had not Philip’s arrival with the two Miss Hardys to make up a set diverted for the moment the nascent possibility of a leading incident.

VI

It was a Sunday afternoon in full July, and a small party was seated under the spreading mulberry tree on the Monteiths’ lawn.  General Claviger was of the number, that well-known constructor of scientific frontiers in India or Africa; and so was Dean Chalmers, the popular preacher, who had come down for the day from his London house to deliver a sermon on behalf of the Society for Superseding the Existing Superstitions of China and Japan by the Dying Ones of Europe.  Philip was there, too, enjoying himself thoroughly in the midst of such good company, and so was Robert Monteith, bleak and grim as usual, but deeply interested for the moment in dividing metaphysical and theological cobwebs with his friend the Dean, who as a brother Scotsman loved a good discussion better almost than he loved a good discourse.  General Claviger, for his part, was congenially engaged in describing to Bertram his pet idea for a campaign against the Madhi and his men, in the interior of the Soudan.  Bertram rather yawned through that technical talk; he was a man of peace, and schemes of organised bloodshed interested him no more than the details of a projected human sacrifice, given by a Central African chief with native gusto, would interest an average European gentleman.  At last, however, the General happened to say casually, “I forget the exact name of the place I mean; I think it’s Malolo; but I have a very good map of all the district at my house down at Wanborough.”

“What!  Wanborough in Northamptonshire?” Bertram exclaimed with sudden interest.  “Do you really live there?”

“I’m lord of the manor,” General Claviger answered, with a little access of dignity.  “The Clavigers or Clavigeros were a Spanish family of Andalusian origin, who settled down at Wanborough under Philip and Mary, and retained the manor, no doubt by conversion to the Protestant side, after the accession of Elizabeth.”

“That’s interesting to me,” Bertram answered, with his frank and fearless truthfulness, “because my people came originally from Wanborough before—­well, before they emigrated.” (Philip, listening askance, pricked up his ears eagerly at the tell-tale phrase; after all, then, a colonist!) “But they weren’t anybody distinguished—­ certainly not lords of the manor,” he added hastily as the General turned a keen eye on him.  “Are there any Ingledews living now in the Wanborough district?  One likes, as a matter of scientific heredity, to know all one can about one’s ancestors, and one’s county, and one’s collateral relatives.”