Since Sir Geoffrey had already said something very like this to her, Lady Wychwood was obliged to laugh; but she shook her head as well, and said: “It’s all very well for you to turn everything to a joke, but it won’t be funny for Geoffrey—or for me either!—when we have people thinking that you left home because we were unkind to you!”

“My dear, they won’t think any such thing when they see that we are on terms of perfect amity. I hope you don’t mean to cut my acquaintance? I expect to entertain you frequently in Camden Place, and give you fair warning that I shall always look on Twynham as my second home, and am likely to descend upon you without ceremony for long visits. You will be wishing me at Jericho, I daresay!” She saw that Lady Wychwood was looking melancholy still, and went to sit beside her, taking her hand, and saying: “Try to understand, Amabel! It isn’t only because Geoffrey and I rub against one another that I am going to set up a home for myself. I want—I want a life of my own!”

“Oh, I do understand that!” said Lady Wychwood, in quick sympathy. “From the moment I set eyes on you I have felt that it was positively wicked that such a lovely girl as you should be wasting her life! If only you would accept Lord Beckenham’s offer, or Mr Kilbride’s—well, no, perhaps not his! Geoffrey says he’s a here-and-thereian, and a gamester, and I suppose that would hardly do for you, though I must confess that I thought he was excessively charming! Well, if you couldn’t like Beckenham, what did you find to dislike in young Gaydon? Or—”

“Stop, stop!” begged Annis laughingly. “I found nothing to dislike in any of them, but I couldn’t discover in myself the smallest wish to marry any of them either. Indeed, I haven’t any wish to marry anyone at all.”

“But, Annis, every woman must wish to be married!” cried Lady Wychwood, quite shocked.

“Now that provides the answer to what people will think when they see me living in my own house instead of at Twynham!” exclaimed Annis. “They will think me an Eccentric! Ten to one, I shall become one of the Sights of Bath, like old General Preston or that weird creature who goes about in a hoop, and feathers! I shall be pointed out as—”