He was lying in the faded heather beside her, sucking grass-stems with bovine enjoyment.  He surveyed the faint pucker on his wife’s forehead with lazy amusement.

She looked down at him.  “It isn’t nearly good enough.”

He laughed comfortably.  “Put it away!  It’ll do for my birthday.  I shan’t look at it from an artist’s point of view.”

She smiled a little.  “Oh, any daub would do for you.  You simply don’t know what art is.”

“Exactly,” he rejoined tranquilly.  “Any daub will do, provided your hand lays on the colours.  But nothing less than that would satisfy me.  Come!  Isn’t that a pretty speech?  And you didn’t angle for it either!” He caught her hand and rubbed it against his cheek.  “You are civilizing me wonderfully,” he declared.  “I never knew how to make pretty speeches before I met you.”

“Surely I never taught you that!” she protested.  “I am never guilty of empty compliments myself.”

“Nor I,” smiled her husband.  “I say what I think to you always.  Now what do you say to coming for a stretch?  There’s an hour left before I need buzz down to the station and meet Jack.  You will admit I have been very good and patient all this time.  Pack up your painting things, and I’ll trek back to the house with them.”

“No.  We will go together,” Hilda said.  “Why not?”

“I thought you would prefer to sit and admire the landscape,” he said.

She smiled and made no response.

“A case in point!” laughed Lord Percy.  “But here the compliment would not have been empty since you obviously prefer my company to the solitude of a Yorkshire moor.”

She looked at him with the smile still in her eyes, but she did not put the compliment into words.  Only, as she rose to leave the scene of her labours, she slipped her hand within his arm.

“I have been thinking a great deal of Chris lately,” she said.  “I wish she would write to me again.”

“I thought your mother was there,” said Lord Percy.

“She has been.  I believe she left them yesterday.  But then, she does not give me any detailed news of Chris. I have a feeling that I can’t get rid of that the child is unhappy.”

“She has no right to be,” rejoined her husband.  “She’s married about the best fellow going.”

“Who understands her about as thoroughly as you understand art.”

“Oh, come!” he remonstrated.  “Mordaunt is not quite such a fool as that!  The little monkey ought to be happy enough—­unless she tries to play fast and loose with him.  Then, I grant you, there would be the devil to pay.”

Hilda smiled.  “I can’t help feeling anxious about her.  It has always been my fear that, when the glamour of first love is past, Trevor might misjudge her.  She is so gay and bright that many people think her empty.  I know my mother does for one.”

“Your mother might,” he conceded.  “Trevor wouldn’t—­being a man of considerable insight.  Tell you what, though, if you want to satisfy yourself on the score of Chris’s happiness, we will get them to put us up for a night when we leave here for town three weeks hence.  How will that suit you?”