The fleeting gaze was fixed now. It observed her attentively.

“But wouldn’t you like to have a room which did belong to you?”

She said again, “I don’t know-” And then, “I couldn’t – here.”

“But you could have your own part in this room. You haven’t added anything, have you? Everyone who has had it has added something that was theirs. Why don’t you get it new curtains? These will fall to pieces some day.”

She shook her head.

“No – they’re just right with the room.”

She saw him frown, and for a moment the likeness to Alicia Steyne was strong.

“They are right because they are old – is that what you mean? And that makes you a blazing anachronism. Everything in this room is old except us. That’s my grandmother’s piano – Dale’s grandmother, and Alicia’s too. The temper comes from her, but she sang like an angel – I can just remember her. And my father brought the carpet back from China – he was in the Navy, you know – and she got the curtains to go with it. My great-great-aunt Agatha worked that cross-stitch atrocity with the roses, thistles, and shamrocks somewhere about the year of the Indian Mutiny. That’s her mother in the Empire dress over the mantelpiece – a bit of a beauty in her day. And the bureau was her mother-in-law’s. So here you are, surrounded by relics of the past and nothing at all to show for your being here – nothing but Lisle in a green linen dress to show that this is Lisle’s own room. Something queer about that, isn’t there?”

It was just as if someone had touched her with a cold finger. Her hand went up to her cheek. It was cold too. She said,

“Don’t! You make me feel like a ghost.”

He laughed.

“Rather a fascinating thought, don’t you think? Not the old ghosts of a past generation coming back to haunt us, but us, all insubstantial and unreal, stepping into their places and haunting them.”

He saw her whiten.

“Yes – it feels like that. Tanfield makes you feel like that. That’s why I hate it.”

There was a sudden change in his face. It had been gently mocking, but now it changed. Something went over it like the shadow that races over water when clouds are blowing – colour dies and sparkle vanishes. He said in a voice that had hardened,

“Yes, you hate Tanfield – don’t you? But I don’t know that I should talk about it if I were you. For instance” – he was smiling again and his eyes were bright – “I shouldn’t say it to Dale.”

Lisle’s hands went together in her lap.

“Rafe – you won’t tell him!”

He laughed.

“I suppose that means that you haven’t told him yourself.”

“Of course I haven’t. I didn’t mean to say it just now – it just slipped out. Rafe, you won’t tell him! It would hurt him most dreadfully.”

“It might hurt you too, my sweet. Have you thought about that?”

She said, “What do you mean?” and met a look which mocked, demanded, and then mocked again.

“Don’t you really know?”

She shook her head, looking down at her clasped hands.

He whistled softly.

“Not very bright, are you, honey-sweet? Not too bright and good for human nature’s daily food, as the poet Wordsworth said. A perfect woman nobly planned, to warn, to comfort, and command. Only Dale does the commanding in this house, and I’m doing the warning. That leaves you the sweet feminine rôle of comforter. And if Dale has to let Tanfield go, I don’t envy you your job. Have you thought about that?”

Lisle said, “Yes.”

“Well, I should go on thinking about it. I gather there isn’t much prospect of unloading any more land on to the government. Now if you really put your back into it, I feel you might Delilah old Robson into parting with enough hard cash to keep us going for another generation – peace in our time, you know.”

She lifted her eyes and saw that he was not looking at her. He was sitting forward, elbow on knee and chin in hand, staring down at the carpet which his father had brought from China.

“I’m not good enough at pretending,” she said. “I’ve tried, and it’s no use – he sees right through me.”

His eyebrows jerked, the kink in them very apparent.

“Not particularly opaque, are you?” His voice rasped on the words.

“You don’t know how hard I’ve tried.”

A shoulder jerked too.

“My poor benighted child! Are you as dumb as you sound? You can’t try to love, to hate, or to stop loving or hating, or to prevent anyone seeing that you love or hate. I expect Robson’s got you taped just about as well as Dale has. And that being so, suppose you listen to the gypsy’s warning.”

“Rafe!”

He leaned forward, pulled her hands apart, and spread them out palm upwards. They were cold and they quivered.

“A dark man and a fair woman-”

Lisle made herself laugh.

“That’s cards and tea-leaves! Hands start with things about the line of life, and the line of heart and all that sort of thing.”

His fingers tightened on her wrists. She had the feeling that they were stronger than Dale’s for all their slender look.

“Something perfectly frightful happens if you break the psychic spell by talking. There’s a dark man and a fair woman, and wedding-bells, and a narrow escape – and then – what’s this?… Oh, a voyage – a long sea voyage. You’re crossing the ocean to the other side of the world-”

“I’m not!” said Lisle. She tried to pull her hands away.

“Well, I think you’d better – it comes out best that way. Besides, it’s in your hand.”

She glanced up and met a look she could not interpret. It teased, but there was something else. She said on a quick impulse,

“Isn’t there a dark woman in my hand?”

“Do you want a dark woman? all right, you shall have one. She can be one of the reasons for the sea voyage.”

The colour ran flooding into Lisle’s face. She pulled and jerked at her hands to get them free.

“Rafe, let me go! I don’t like it. Let me go!”

He released her at once. She got up, and stood drawing long, unsteady breaths whilst he leaned back and watched her. She had fought hard for her self-control, but it had slipped.

“Why did you say that? Do you want me to go away?”

“I thought it might be a good thing if you went.”

“To the States?”

“A pleasant family reunion.”

She said in a breaking voice,

“I haven’t got any family.”

“Cousins can be very delightful. I think you said that there were cousins. They would have all the charm of the unknown.”

She went over to the glass door. There was an effort of wrenching free and then checking – as if an impetus had spent itself. She said without looking round,

“You want me to go?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Least said, soonest mended, my dear.”

She did turn round then.

“Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The family reunion – auld lang syne, and hands across the sea.”

Lisle’s head came up.

“I am to go?”

“That is the idea.”

“And Alicia is to stay?”

“That seems to be Alicia’s idea.”

Lisle turned and went out through the glass door. There were four steps down on to the terrace. Just before she took the first one she looked over her shoulder.

“I don’t think you’re very good at telling fortunes,” she said.