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“I thought the air might be good for him,” the secretary admitted.

“Why do people like you never think about yourselves?” the wife asked.

The secretary looked her in the eye.

“I suppose we do, in a different way,” she said.

“A verydifferent way!” said the wife ironically.”Why don’t you make himthink about you?” she added, slowly, with a sort of drawl.”On a soft spring afternoon like this, you ought to have him dictating poems to you, about the blue birds of happiness fluttering round your dainty little feet. I know Iwould, if I were his secretary.”

There was a dead pause. The wife stood immobile and statuesque, in an attitude characteristic of her, half turning back to the little secretary, half averted. She half turned her back on everything.

The secretary looked at him.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was doing an article on the Future of the Novel.”

“I know that,” said the wife.”That’s what’s so awful! Why not something lively in the life of the novelist?”

There was a prolonged silence, in which he looked pained, and somewhat remote, statuesque. The little secretary hung her head. The wife sauntered slowly away.

“Just where were we, Miss Wrexall?” came the sound of his voice.

The little secretary started. She was f
eeling profoundly indignant. Their beautiful relationship, his and hers, to be so insulted!

But soon she was veering down-stream on the flow of his words, too busy to have any feelings, except one of elation at being so busy.

Tea-time came; the sister brought out the tea-tray into the garden. And immediately, the wife appeared. She had changed, and was wearing a chicory-blue dress of fine cloth. The little secretary had gathered up her papers and was departing, on rather high heels.

“Don’t go, Miss Wrexall,” said the wife.

The little secretary stopped short, then hesitated.

“Mother will be expecting me,” she said.

“Tell her you’re not coming. And ask your sister to bring another cup. I want you to have tea with us.”

Miss Wrexall looked at the man, who was reared on one elbow in the hammock, and was looking enigmatical, Hamletish.

He glanced at her quickly, then pursed his mouth in a boyish negligence.

“Yes, stay and have tea with us for once,” he said.”I see strawberries, and I know you’re the bird for them.”

She glanced at him, smiled wanly, and hurried away to tell her mother. She even stayed long enough to slip on a silk dress.

“Why, how smart you are!” said the wife, when the little secretary reappeared on the lawn, in chicory-blue silk.

“Oh, don’t look at my dress, compared to yours!” said Miss Wrexall. They were of the same colour, indeed!

“At least you earned yours, which is more than I did mine,” said the wife, as she poured tea.”You like it strong?”

She looked with her heavy eyes at the smallish, birdy, blue-clad, overworked young woman, and her eyes seemed to speak many inexplicable dark volumes.

“Oh, as it comes, thank you,” said Miss Wrexall, leaning nervously forward.

“It’s coming pretty black, if you want to ruin your digestion,” said the wife.

“Oh, I’ll have some water in it, then.”

“Better, I should say.”

“How’d the work go–all right?” asked the wife, as they drank tea, and the two women looked at each other’s blue dresses.

“Oh!” he said.”As well as you can expect. It was a piece of pure flummery. But it’s what they want. Awful rot, wasn’t it, Miss Wrexall?”

Miss Wrexall moved uneasily on her chair.

“It interested me,” she said, “though not so much as the novel.”

“The novel? Which novel?” said the wife.”Is there another new one?”

Miss Wrexall looked at him. Not for words would she give away any of his literary activities.

“Oh, I was just sketching out an idea to Miss Wrexall,” he said.