He came at last to the rendezvous.  Miss Merry sat at her post transferring to a little block of paper a smeared and streaky picture of the chalk-pit, which seemed equally unintelligible at whatever angle it might be held.  Jack was couched at a little distance in the heather, smoking a pipe.  Howard went and sat down moodily beside him.  “An odd thing, a picnic,” said Jack musingly; “I am not sure it is not an invention of the devil.  Is anything the matter, Howard?  You look as if things had gone wrong.  You don’t mind that nonsense of Guthrie’s, do you?  I was an ass to get him to do it; I hate doing a stupid thing, and he is simply wild with me.  It’s no good saying it is not like, because it is in a way, but of course it’s only a rag.  It isn’t absurd when you do it, only when someone else does.”

“Oh no, I don’t mind about that,” said Howard; “do make that plain to Guthrie.  I am out of sorts, I think; one gets bothered, you know—­what is called the blues.”

“Oh, I know,” said Jack sympathetically; “I don’t suffer from them myself as a rule, but I have got a touch of them to-day.  I can’t understand what everyone is up to.  Fred Guthrie has got the jumps.  It looks to me,” he went on sagely, “as if he was what is commonly called in love:  but when the other person is one’s sister, it seems strange.  Maud isn’t a bad girl, as they go, but she isn’t an angel, and still less a saint; but Fred has no eyes for anyone else; I can’t screw a sensible word out of him.  These young people!” said Jack with a sour grimace; “you and I know better.  One ought to leave the women alone; there’s something queer about them; you never know where you are with them.”

Howard regarded him in silence for a moment:  it did not seem worth while to argue; nothing seemed worth while.  “Where are they?” he said drearily.

“Oh, goodness knows!” said Jack; “when I last saw them he was beating down the ferns with a stick for Maud to go through.  He’s absolutely demented, and she is at one of her games.  I think I shall sheer off, and go to visit some sick people, like the governor; that’s about all I feel up to.”

At this moment, however, the truants appeared, walking silently out of a glade.  Howard had an obscure feeling that something serious had happened—­he did not know what.  Guthrie looked dejected, and Maud was evidently preoccupied.  “Oh, damn the whole show!” said Jack, getting up.  “Let’s get out of this!”

“We lost our way,” said Maud, rather hurriedly, “and couldn’t find our way back.”

Maud went up to Miss Merry, asked to see her sketch, and indulged in some very intemperate praise.  Guthrie came up to Howard, and stammered through an apology for his rudeness.

“Oh, don’t say anything more,” said Howard.  “Of course I didn’t mind!  It really doesn’t matter at all.”

The day was beginning to decline; and in an awkward silence, only broken by inconsequent remarks, the party descended the hill, regained the carriages, and drove off in mournful silence.  As the Vicarage party drove away, Jack glanced at Howard, raised his eyes in mock despair, and gave a solemn shake of his head.