‘So, it is . . . ?’

‘She’s amazed at her cleverness!’

‘A nest for three?’

‘We must have a friend or two.’

‘And pretty country?’

‘Trust her papa for that.’

‘Nice for walking and running over fields?  No rich people?’

’How escape that rabble in England! as Colney says.  It’s a place for being quite independent of neighbours, free as air.’

‘Oh! bravo!’

’And Fredi will have her horse, and mama her pony-carriage; and Fredi can have a swim every Summer morning.’

‘A swim?’ Her note was dubious.  ‘A river?’

’A good long stretch—­fairish, fairish.  Bit of a lake; bathing-shed; the Naiad’s bower:  pretty water to see.’

‘Ah.  And has the house a name?’

‘Lakelands.  I like the name.’

‘Papa gave it the name!’

’There’s nothing he can conceal from his girl.  Only now and then a little surprise.’

’And his girl is off her head with astonishment.  But tell me, who has been sharing the secret with you?’

’Fredi strikes home!  And it is true, you dear; I must have a confidant:  Simeon Fenellan.’

‘Not Mr. Durance?’

He shook out a positive negative.  ’I leave Col to his guesses.  He’d have been prophesying fire the works before the completion.’

‘Then it is not a dear old house, like Craye and Creckholt?’

‘Wait and see to-morrow.’

He spoke of the customary guests for concert practice; the music, instrumental and vocal; quartet, duet, solo; and advising the girl to be quick, as she had but twenty-five minutes, he went humming and trilling into his dressing-room.

Nesta signalled at her mother’s door for permission to enter.  She slipped in, saw that the maid was absent, and said:  ’Yes, mama; and prepare, I feared it; I was sure.’

Her mother breathed a little moan:  ‘Not a cottage?’

‘He has not mentioned it to Mr. Durance.’

‘Why not?’

‘Mr. Fenellan has been his confidant.’

’My darling, we did wrong to let it go on, without speaking.  You don’t know for certain yet?’

‘It’s a large estate, mama, and a big new house.’

Nataly’s bosom sank.  ’Ah me! here’s misery!  I ought to have known.  And too late now it has gone so far!  But I never imagined he would be building.’

She caught herself languishing at her toilette-glass, as, if her beauty were at stake; and shut her eyelids angrily.  To be looking in that manner, for a mere suspicion, was too foolish.  But Nesta’s divinations were target-arrows; they flew to the mark.  Could it have been expected that Victor would ever do anything on a small scale?  O the dear little lost lost cottage!  She thought of it with a strain of the arms of womanhood’s longing in the unblessed wife for a babe.  For the secluded modest cottage would not rack her with the old anxieties, beset her with suspicions. . . .