"You can tell her."

"He wanted to write Horatio's book for him, and Horatio wouldn't let
him. That was all."

"Oh, well, _I_ shan't want to write it," Barbara said.

"We thought perhaps you wouldn't," said Fanny.

But Barbara had turned to her bureau, affecting a discreet absorption in
her list. And presently Ralph Bevan went out into the garden with Fanny
to gather more tulips.




II


1

She _had_ been dying to know what he had done, but now, after Ralph had
stayed to lunch and tea and dinner that first day, after he had spent
all yesterday at the Manor, and after he had turned up to-day at ten
o'clock in the morning, Barbara thought she had made out the history,
though they had been very discreet and Fanny had insisted on reading
"Tono-Bungay" out loud half the time.

Ralph, of course, was in love with his cousin Fanny. To be sure, she
must be at least ten years older than he was, but that wouldn't matter.