Nesta controlled a shuddering:  ’It is the knowledge of it in ourselves—­ that it has ever happened;—­you dear Louise, who deserve so much better!  And one asks—­Oh, why are we not left in peace!  And do look at the objects it makes of us!’ Mademoiselle:  could see, that the girl’s desperation had got hold of her humour for a life-buoy.  ’It is really worse to have it unknown—­when you are compelled to be his partner in sharing the secret, and feel as if it were a dreadful doll you conceal for fear that everybody will laugh at its face.’

She resumed her seriousness:  ’I find it so hard to be vexed with him and really really like him.  For he is a good man; but he will not let one shake him off.  He distresses:  because we can’t quite meet as we did.  Last Wednesday Concert evening, he kept away; and I am annoyed that I was glad.’

’Moths have to pass through showers, and keep their pretty patterns from damage as best they can,’ said mademoiselle.

Nesta transformed herself into a disciple of Philosophy on the spot.  ’Yes, all these feelings of ours are moth-dust!  One feels them.  I suppose they pass.  They must.  But tell me, Louise, dear soul, was your poor dear good little afflicted suitor—­was he kindly pitied?’

’Conformably with the regulations prescribed to young damsels who are in request to surrender the custody of their hands.  It is easy to commit a dangerous excess in the dispensing of that article they call pity of them.’

‘And he—­did he?—­vowed to you he could not take No for an answer?’

At this ingenuous question, woefully uttered, mademoiselle was pricked, to smile pointedly.  Nesta had a tooth on her under-lip.  Then, shaking vapours to the winds, she said:  ’It is an honour, to be asked; and we cannot be expected to consent.  So I shall wear through it.—­Only I do wish that Mr. Fenellan would not call him The Inchcape Bell!’ She murmured this to herself.

Mr. Barmby was absent for two weeks.  ‘Can anything have offended him?’ Victor inquired, in some consternation, appreciating the man’s worth, and the grand basso he was; together with the need for him at the Lakelands Concert in August.

Nataly wrote Mr. Barmby a direct invitation.  She had no reply.  Her speculations were cut short by Victor, who handed her a brief note addressed to him and signed by the Rev. Septimus, petitioning for a private interview.

The formality of the request incensed Victor.  ’Now, dear love, you see Colney’s meaning, when he says, there are people who have no intimacy in them.  Here’s a man who visits me regularly once a week or more, has been familiar for years—­four, at least; and he wants to speak to me, and must obtain the “privilege” by special appointment!  What can be the meaning of it?’

‘You will hear to-morrow afternoon,’ Nataly said, seeing one paved way to the meaning—­a too likely meaning. . .  ’He hasn’t been . . . nothing about Fredi, surely!’