if he had been on the lookout for distraction, he would have found it in georgie chatterton. at miss tancred's request he went with her to the station to meet the expected guest. it was evidently thought that his presence would break the shock of her arrival. [pg 289]

it proved an unnecessary precaution. the young girl presented a smiling face at the carriage window—the tancred face, somewhat obscured by a mass of irrelevant detail, sandy hair, freckles, a sanguine complexion, and so on. she jumped out on to the platform with a joyous cry of "fridah!" she embraced "fridah" impetuously, and then kept her a moment at arm's length, examining her dubiously. "you don't seem a bit glad to see me," was her verdict. she smiled gaily at durant, and held out a friendly hand. all the way up from the station she conversed with them in a light-hearted manner. thus:—

"what do you people do down here?"

"ask mr. durant; he'll tell you that we vegetate all day and play whist all night."

"oh, do you? well, you know, i shan't. my goodness, frida! is that your house? whatever is it like? a unitarian chapel, or the carlton club, or, stop a bit—you don't bury people in it, do you?" then, as it occurred to her that she might have hurt her cousin's feelings by her last suggestion, she added, "it's rather a jolly old mausoleum, though. i wonder what it's like inside."

if miss chatterton had any premonition of her own approaching death by boredom, and had seen in coton manor more than a mere passing resemblance to a tomb, she was neither awestruck nor downcast at the prospect of dissolution. she flung herself into the vault as she had flung herself onto the platform, all glowing with pleasurable anticipation. to durant there was something infinitely sad in the spectacle of this young creature precipitating herself into the unknown with such reckless and passionate curiosity. the whole long evening through he could discover no diminution of her mood, her gleeful determination to [pg 290] enjoy herself among the shades. she behaved to colonel tancred as if he had been a celebrity whose acquaintance she had long desired to make, a character replete with interest and romantic charm. she greeted mrs. fazakerly with a joyous lifting of the eyebrows, as much as to say, "what! another delightful person?"

and she was observant in her way, too. when miss tancred put a hand on her shoulder and said, "it will be horribly dull for you, georgie; you'll have nothing to do but talk to mr. durant," she replied, "h'm! mr. durant looks as if he had been talked to all his life. i shall talk to you, frida."

all through dinner she managed to preserve her spirits, her air of being among the most curious and interesting people. durant wondered how on earth she kept it up. she seemed one of those fortunate beings whose vivacity is so overpowering that it can subdue even dulness to itself. she made the colonel look strangely old; beside her mrs. fazakerly seemed suddenly to become dull and second-rate, to sink into the position of an attendant, a fatuous chorus, a giddy satellite. her laughter swallowed up mrs. fazakerly's as a river in flood devours its tributaries; her spirits quenched mrs. fazakerly's as a blaze licks up a spasmodic flicker. it pleased durant to look at her, the abandonment of her manners was in such flagrant contradiction with the roman regularity of her tancred face. owing, perhaps, to some dash of the tancred blood in her, she was neither pretty nor witty; yet she contrived to get her own way with everybody. durant accounted for it by her sheer youth, the obstinacy of her will to live.

in twenty-four hours she had put a stop to frida's disappearances, to durant's sketching, and to the colonel's [pg 291] intellectual conversation; and this she did by behaving so as to make these things impossible. in short, she had taken possession of her cousin and her black mare, of the colonel and his cigarettes, of mrs. fazakerly and her books, of everybody and everything except durant. she was friendly with him, but somehow her friendliness was infinitely more unflattering than miss tancred's former apathy. it implied that he was all very well in his way, but that she had seen too many of his sort to be greatly excited about him; while in frida tancred, now, she had found something absolutely and uniquely new. she was not going to be put off with durant; she fastened herself upon frida, and refused to let her go; she did the thing she had said she would do—without absolutely ignoring her fellow-guest, she talked to frida or at frida or for frida alone. and yet, strangely enough, by dint of much observation she had detected a subtle resemblance between them, and she proclaimed her discovery with her natural frankness.

it was the second evening of her stay, and the three were sitting out on the lawn together. she had been looking long and earnestly at her mysterious kinswoman.

"frida, you really are a sort of cousin, aren't you?"

"so i've always been told."

"and mr. durant, is he a sort of cousin, too?"

"i never heard that."

"i'm afraid i have not the honor."

"that's odd. i thought he must be."

"why?" asked miss tancred.

"oh, because there's a likeness somewhere. not in the face exactly, but—yes, there! keep that expression on your face one minute, mr. durant; now don't you see it?" [pg 292]

"see what?"

"it—the likeness. he looks terribly reserved somehow—a sort of wild-horses-shan't-draw-it-out-of-me expression, and yet so fearfully restless; and that's just like you."

there was an embarrassed silence; and then miss chatterton again raised her cheerful voice.

"i say, frida! you might tell me exactly what i'm in for. are you two going to be horribly intellectual and clever and that sort of thing?"

"i'm not," said miss tancred.

"i'm not," echoed durant.

"thank heaven! because you both look as if you'd a tremendous lot in you. i wonder if you'll ever let it out."

"not if we can help it," said durant.

"there you are again! if you're not frida's first cousin, you ought to be."

durant smiled; he wondered whether the idea was more than the random frolicking of miss chatterton's brain. she was evidently a young woman of perception; but her perceptions had wings, and she threw them off from her in a manner altogether spontaneous, impersonal and free. it was nothing to her if they brushed against the truth sometimes in their irresponsible flight.

"you don't mind all these personal remarks, do you?"

"not in the least," said miss tancred.

"for my part i rather like them," said durant; but they both carefully avoided each other's eyes.