Mr. Strobridge, however, was one of the chief pieces in her game, and him she would see often as long as she remained in Lady Garribardine's service, so there was no hurry--she could afford to wait.

But all the same she settled down to read "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" without the buoyant feeling of self-confidence which usually gave her such a proud carriage of head.

CHAPTER XIV

A message came up to Katherine next morning--the morning of Christmas Day--from Lady Garribardine to say that she could walk across the park to church with the two elder children and that she was to take them into the front pew that faced the large carved family one behind the choir at right angles.

And from this well-placed outlook Miss Bush later on observed the house party enter by a door in the chancel. They filled the whole long seat and overflowed into the pew where she and the children sat, and it happened that Gerard Strobridge was next her and knelt to say his prayers.

Propinquity is a very curious thing, and when all possibility of conversation is nil, propinquity has sometimes been known to exert a very powerful influence. Gerard Strobridge was conscious with every throb of his pulse of the nearness of Katherine Bush; there was a magnetic disturbing emanation he felt coming from her, which excited him unaccountably. He kept glancing at her regular profile from time to time. Her very pale skin and large red mouth attracted him immensely.

She never once looked at him, and maintained an air of absolute unconsciousness.

"What is she thinking about, I wonder?" he mused. "I have never seen a face more sphinxlike; she could be good or devilishly bad, she could love pa.s.sionately and hate coldly, she could be cruel as the grave and hard as adamant. She is a woman that a man were wiser not to know too well for his own safety."

But reflections of this sort never yet made son of Adam avoid the object of them, so when they came out and Katherine was waiting for instructions from her employer as to the disposal of the children, Mr.

Strobridge came up to her.

"A happy Christmas, Miss Bush," he said. "Are you going to walk back through the Park? Here, Teddy, I will come with you."

"We are going in the motor with Grandmamma," both children cried at once as Katherine returned his greeting, and they ran off to Lady Garribardine. So Katherine started to walk on alone, while the rest of the party lingered about the porch and made up their minds as to whether or no they would drive.

She had gone some way and was on a path by a copse in the Park, when Mr.

Strobridge caught her up.

"Why did you race ahead, Miss Bush?" he asked. "Did you not want any companion in your solitude?"

"I never thought about it," she returned quite simply.

"I did--I wanted to walk with you, I have been watching you all the time in church. I believe that you were in dreamland again; now will be the very moment to finish our discussion upon it."

"I don't think we had begun it."

"Well, we will."

"How are we to start?"

"You are going to tell me where yours is--in the heart or in the head?"

"Such a conversation would be altogether unprofitable." There was mischief lurking in the corner of her eye and trembling in the curves of her full mouth.

"I must judge of that."

"How so? Do I not count?"

"Enormously--that is why I want to hear of your dreamland."

"It is a place where only I can go."

"How unsociable--but you look disobliging."

"I am."

"Very well, I give up the task of trying to make you tell me about it.

By the way, I have not had the chance to thank you for so kindly finishing those papers for that confounded charity. My aunt said they were in perfect order."

"I am glad of that."

He raised his head and looked away in front of them down into a dell and so up again to the house.

"Isn't this a beautiful view? I always think of 'the stately homes of England' when I walk back from church."

Katherine's eyes followed his to the gabled, irregular red brick house, with its wreath of blue smoke going straight up into the winter sky.

"I have never seen one before," she told him. "You can imagine how wonderful this appears to me after the place where I have lived. I had only seen Hampton Court, but somehow all the people there and its being a museum did not make it have the impression of a house that is inhabited."

"This pleases you, does it?"

"Naturally. I love everything about it, the s.p.a.ce, and people not being allowed in. It is Her Ladyship's own--she can shut the gates if she wants to and have it all to herself--that must be good."

"What a strange girl! You would not like to share anything, then? I have already remarked this deplorably selfish instinct in you, in reference to your dreamland--and you would keep poor devils out of your park, too, if you could!"

"Generally--yes."

"Well, I want to be the exception to this exclusiveness. If I come up one afternoon to the old schoolroom, for instance, and ask you to talk to me, will you turn me out?"

"It depends what you want me to talk to you about. If it is upon a subject only to please you--yes--if to please me then I may let you stay for a little."

"What subjects would please you?"

"I would like to hear all about the pictures in the house, for instance--you see, before I came to Lady Garribardine I had never conversed with anyone educated in art. So I have only a very little book knowledge to go upon."

"We will talk about art then; the house is full of interesting things, part of it is so old."

For the rest of the way he did his best to entertain his aunt's insignificant secretary, and they both knew that the walk had been very charming. When they got into the shrubbery, Katherine took the path which led to the small rose-garden courtyard, on which the schoolroom staircase opened.

"Of course, I had forgotten you have a front door all to yourself."

"Yes--our roads divide here. Good morning, Mr. Strobridge."

"Are you going to shake hands with me?"

"No, it is quite unnecessary."

"_Au revoir_, then. To-night I shall dance with you. I have not danced for ten years."