Louis flushed slightly as he slapped his thigh.

“Never thought of that!” he cried.  “It very probably was that.  Strange it never occurred to me!”

Rachel said nothing.  She had extreme difficulty in keeping control of herself while old Batchgrew, with numerous senile precautions, took his slow departure.  She forgot that she was a hostess and a woman of the world.

III

“Hello!  What’s that?” Rachel asked, in a self-conscious voice, when they were in the parlour again.

Louis had almost surreptitiously taken an envelope from his pocket, and was extracting a paper from it.

On finding themselves alone they had not followed their usual custom of bursting into comment, favourable or unfavourable, on the departed—­a practice due more to a desire to rouse and enjoy each other’s individualities than to a genuine interest in the third person.  Nor had they impulsively or deliberately kissed, as they were liable to do after release from a spell of worldliness.  On the contrary, both were still constrained, as if the third person was still with them.  The fact was that there were two other persons in the room, darkly discerned by Louis and Rachel—­namely, a different, inimical Rachel and a different, inimical Louis.  All four, the seen and the half-seen, walked stealthily, like rival beasts in the edge of the jungle.

“Oh!” said Louis with an air of nonchalance.  “It came by the last post while old Batch was here, and I just shoved it into my pocket.”

The arrivals of the post were always interesting to them, for during the weeks after marriage letters are apt to be more numerous than usual, and to contain delicate and enchanting surprises.  Both of them were always strictly ceremonious in the handling of each other’s letters, and yet both deprecated this ceremoniousness in the beloved.  Louis urged Rachel to open his letters without scruple, and Rachel did the same to Louis.  But both—­Louis by chivalry and Rachel by pride—­were prevented from acting on the invitation.  The envelope in Louis’ hand did not contain a letter, but only a circular.  The fact that the flap of the envelope was unsealed and the stamp a mere halfpenny ought rightly to have deprived the packet of all significance as a subject of curiosity.  Nevertheless, the different, inimical Rachel, probably out of sheer perversity, went up to Louis and looked over his shoulder as he read the communication, which was a printed circular, somewhat yellowed, with blanks neatly filled in, and the whole neatly signed by a churchwarden, informing Louis that his application for sittings at St. Luke’s Church (commonly called the Old Church) had been granted.  It is to be noted that, though applications for sittings in the Old Church were not overwhelmingly frequent, and might indeed very easily have been coped with by means of autograph replies, the authorities had a sufficient sense of dignity always to circularize the applicants.