“I’m afraid he’ll think it frightfully expensive,” she answered, becoming thoughtful once more.  And it did not occur to her that neither of them had mentioned the individual to whom they referred.

“Wait until he’s feeling tiptop,” Mr. Cuthbert advised, “and then bring him up here in a hurry.  I say, I hope you do take the house,” he added, with a boyish seriousness after she had refused his appeal to lunch with him, “and that you will let me come and see you once in a while.”

She lunched alone, in a quiet corner of the dining-room of one of the large hotels, gazing at intervals absently out of the window.  And by the middle of the afternoon she found herself, quite unexpectedly, in the antique furniture shop, gazing at the sideboard and a set of leather-seated Jacobean chairs, and bribing the dealer with a smile to hold them for a few days until she could decide whether she wished them.  In a similar mood of abstraction she boarded the ferry, but it was not until the boat had started on its journey that she became aware of a trim, familiar figure in front of her, silhouetted against the ruffed blue waters of the river—­Trixton Brent’s.  And presently, as though the concentration of her thoughts upon his back had summoned him, he turned.

“Where have you been all this time?” she asked.  “I haven’t seen you for an age.”

“To Seattle.”

“To Seattle!” she exclaimed.  “What were you doing there?”

“Trying to forget you,” he replied promptly, “and incidentally attempting to obtain control of some properties.  Both efforts, I may add, were unsuccessful.”

“I’m sorry,” said Honora.

“And what mischief,” he demanded, “have you been up to?”

“You’ll never guess!” she exclaimed.

“Preparing for the exodus,” he hazarded.

“You surely don’t expect me to stay in Quicksands all winter?” she replied, a little guiltily.

“Quicksands,” he declared, “has passed into history.”

“You always insist upon putting a wrong interpretation upon what I do,” she complained.

He laughed.

“What interpretation do you put on it?” he asked.

“A most natural and praiseworthy one,” she answered.  “Education, improvement, growth—­these things are as necessary for a woman as for a man.  Of course I don’t expect you to believe that—­your idea of women not being a very exalted one.”

He did not reply, for at that instant the bell rang, the passengers pressed forward about them, and they were soon in the midst of the confusion of a landing.  It was not until they were seated in adjoining chairs of the parlour-car that the conversation was renewed.

“When do you move to town?” he inquired.

However simple Mr. Brent’s methods of reasoning may appear to others, his apparent clairvoyance never failed to startle Honora.

“Somebody has told you that I’ve been looking at houses!” she exclaimed.