“I felt something of a rarity myself at the time,” owned ’Bias.  “But there’s another explanation I like better, though you’ll think it far-fetched. . . .  You and me—­until this happened, there was never a cross word atween us, nor a cross thought?”

“That’s so, ’Bias.”

“Well, and that bein’ so, if Benny hit the note for one, how could it help bein’ the note for both? . . .  I’ve had pretty rash thoughts about Benny:  but—­put it in that way—­who’s to blame the man?  Or the woman, for that matter?”

“I like that explanation better,” said Cai.

“—­Or the woman?  She can’t help bein’ a two-headed nightingale.”

“To be sure she can’t. . . .  We might leave it at that and say no more about it.  She’d be sure to understand in time.”

“The agreement was, last night,” insisted ’Bias with great firmness, “to put it to her straight and get it over.”

They resumed their walk and mounted the pathway over which—­from the first angle of the outbuildings to the garden-gate—­Banksian roses hung from the wall in heavy honey-coloured clusters of bloom.  These were scentless and already past their prime; but by the gate at the south-east end of the house the white Banksian, throwing far wider shoots, saluted them with a scent as of violets belated.  And within the gate the old roses were coming on with a rush—­Provence and climbing China; Moschata alba, pouring over an arch in a cascade of bloom that hid all its green as with shell-pink foam; crimson and striped Damask along the border; with Paul Neyron eclipsing all in size, moss-roses bursting their gummy shells, Gloire de Dijon climbing and asserting itself above the falsely named “pink Gloire”; Reine Marie Henriette—­ which, grown by everybody, is perhaps the worst rose in the world.  Gloire de Dijon rampant smothered the pretender and covered the most of its mildewing buds from sight; to be conquered in its turn by the sheer beauty of Marechal Niel, whose every yellow star, bold on its stalk as greenhouses can grow it, shamed all feebler yellows.  Devoniensis flung its sprays down from the thatch.  La France and Ulrich Brunner competed—­silver rose against cherry rose—­on either side of the porch.  Yet the fragrance of all these roses had to yield to that of the Cottage flowers, mignonette, Sweet-William, lemon verbena, Brompton stocks—­ annuals, biennials, perennials, intermixed—­that lined the border, with blue delphiniums and white Madonna lilies breaking into flower above them.

Dinah, answering their ring at the bell after the usual delay for reconnaissance, opined that her mistress would probably be found in the new rose-garden.  She said it, as they both observed, with a demure, half-mischievous smile.

“Amused to see us in company again, I reckon,” said Cai to ’Bias as they went up through the old rose-garden, where the June-flowering H.P.’s ran riot in masses of colour from palest pink to deepest crimson.