Lisle blenched.

“I don’t think I could.”

It wouldn’t be any use. Dale wouldn’t. He’d say it wasn’t his business – and it wasn’t.

“If you would just say a word,” said Miss Cole, rattling her cherries. “I’m sure I’ll never have a moment’s peace while that Pell’s anywhere around. I don’t say Cissie isn’t fond of him, but she’s right down frightened of him too. If she says she won’t meet him, he tells her she’d best or there’ll be something happening to her she won’t like, and as long as he’s anywhere around there’s no telling what he’ll be up to. So if you’ll just say a word-”

“I don’t think I can,” said Lisle in a soft, distressed voice. “I don’t think it would be any use, Miss Cole – I don’t really.”

Miss Cole fixed her with a bright, persuasive gaze.

“If you would just mention it. And of course I know what gentlemen are – they take ideas, and then it’s no good going on, because it only puts their backs up, but Mr. Jerningham’s always been so kind, so perhaps if you could bring it in just in the way of talk-”

“Yes, I could do that – but I don’t think-”

“You never know,” said Miss Cole brightly. “And I won’t keep you, Mrs. Jerningham, but if you could say a word to Cissie yourself I’m sure she’d think the world of it.”

Lisle said “Oh-” and then, “Would she?” in a doubtful tone. She didn’t feel old enough or wise enough to give advice to Cissie Cole. And what could she say to her?… “You’ve lost your heart to the wrong man. Take it back again. Don’t be sorry any more, because he isn’t worth it. Save what you can whilst there is still something to be saved.” She might say these things. But would Cissie listen, or would it help her if she did?… Faint and far away something whispered, “You might say those things to yourself.” It stabbed right through her. She said,

“Is she very unhappy?”

“Cries herself sick,” said Miss Cole, for once succinct.

Lisle put a hand up to her cheek. It was a gesture which spoke distress.

“But would she mind? I shouldn’t like-”

Miss Cole shook an emphatic head. The cherries rattled.

“She thinks the world of you. There’s no one she’d listen to more than what she would to you. I’m sure I was ashamed to think she’d come crying to you the way she did about that Pell, but she couldn’t say enough about your kindness, and she took notice of what you said, because she told me some of it. You know how it is Mrs. Jerningham, if a girl’s got a fancy for anyone she’ll listen to them, and if she hasn’t she won’t – and I’m sure Cissie thinks the world of you, as I said before.”

Lisle got up. If she didn’t say she would see Cissie, Miss Cole would go on talking until she did. It would really be easier to talk to Cissie than to go on talking to Miss Cole. And she could give Cissie her green checked coat. That was a really splendid idea. It would cheer Cissie up, and it would get rid of the coat. Every time she saw it in her cupboard she could hear Alicia say, “That ghastly coat!” But Cissie would love it.

She said quickly, “If Cissie could come up this evening, I could see her. Tell her I’ve got something for her.”

Miss Cole got up too. She picked up her brown handbag, put away her handkerchief, and shook hands.

“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she said.

Chapter 16

WHEN Miss Cole had gone Lisle stood at the glass door and looked out. The group on the lawn had broken up. The chairs were empty. The shadow of the cedar covered them. If she had to speak to Dale about Pell, she wanted to get it over. If he had come in from the garden, he might be in the study. Nobody ever studied there, but it was by custom and inheritance Dale’s own room. Everything at Tanfield was like that. Lisle’s little sitting-room was not hers because she liked it, but because the mistress of Tanfield had always had that room. Her great gloomy bedroom was hers for the same reason. If she had wanted another room she would have wanted it in vain.

She came to the study by way of the gunroom next door. Afterwards she wondered why she had not gone straight to the study door. If she had, things might have been different. But think as she would, she could get no nearer to knowing why she had gone through the gun-room. The door was ajar – it might have been that. She crossed to the door which led into the study and found it a hand’s-breadth open. There was no sound from the room beyond. She pulled the door a little wider and looked in.

She saw Dale. He had his back to her and his arms about Alicia Steyne. She could not see Alicia’s face – only a piece of a white skirt, and her hands locked about Dale’s neck and Dale’s head bent to hers. She saw no more than she had to see, and turned and came away.

When she reached her sitting-room she sat down on the couch and tried to steady herself. A kiss doesn’t mean very much. With some men it doesn’t mean anything at all. She mustn’t make a mountain out of a molehill or think that the world had come to an end because Dale kissed his cousin. No, she wouldn’t cheat herself either – it wasn’t a cousinly kiss. But she had hurt his feelings. He had brought her a present. She hadn’t liked it, and she had shown that she hadn’t liked it in front of Rafe and Alicia. After that, how easy for Alicia to play on the hurt, to use his old feeling for her and blow some spark of passion into a blaze. If she had been there to watch, she could not have been more sure of what had happened. She had a sense of justice as delicate as it was rare. It could divide between Dale’s fault and her own hurt. She must not cry, because Alicia would see that she had been crying – and she must not let Alicia see, because Alicia hated her. But Dale loved her. Dale had married her, not Alicia. Dale loved her… Her heart turned slowly over. Did he?

Before she had time to answer that Rafe drifted in from the garden.

“All alone, my sweet? Well, that’s my luck, isn’t it? I’ve actually missed Miss Cole. Quotation from topical song – ‘I miss my miss, and my miss misses me.’ I wonder if she does. Alternatively, ‘I kiss my miss, and my miss kisses me.’ ” He made an excruciating face. “A perfectly horrible thought! Do you think she would if I asked her – or rather if I didn’t ask her?” He dropped into a chair and declaimed melodiously:

“ ‘Kisses that by night are stolen

And by night given back again,

These are love and these are rapture,

These are joy and these are pain.’

The poet Heine – my own translation. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about it, by all accounts. What do you suppose Miss Cole would say if I were to recite that to her?”

“She’d think you were being clever – they all think you’re very clever in the village – and she’d say, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure, Mr. Rafe.’ ”

His glance flickered over her. She had a momentary disconcerted feeling that it showed him everything she most wished to hide. But then, after all, it didn’t really matter with Rafe. He took everything so lightly that it didn’t matter. He even gave her the feeling that what burdened her was too light and inconsiderable to matter to anyone. Everything went on the surface with Rafe. What the depths held, or whether there were any depths at all, she did not know.

The flickering glance passed on, touching everything lightly and resting nowhere. Then it came back to her.

“Would you have liked to do this room over for yourself – have everything new?”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t belong to me.”

She didn’t say what she had said to Aimée Mallam, “Dale wouldn’t like it.” And she didn’t say it, because there was no need to say it. Rafe’s question and her own answer were not on any practical plane, but purely speculative. And that was so well understood between them that Tanfield with its laws and customs irrevocable as those of the Medes and Persians, and Dale, who was their servant, did not come into it at all.