She was also looking at the dark brown, swollen river that has been
immortalised in song.

"It's never blue. It's always a yellow-ochre, it seems to me."

He waited a long time before venturing to express the thought that of
late had been troubling him seriously.

"I wonder if you truly realise the difficulty Edith will have in
satisfying an incredulous world with her absolutely truthful story.
She'll have to explain, you know. There's bound to be a sceptic or two,
my dear Constance."

"But there's Roxbury," she protested, her face clouding nevertheless.
"_He_ will set everything right."

"The world will say he is a gullible fool," said he gently. "And the
world always laughs at, not with, a fool. Alas, my dear sister, it's a
very deep pool we're in." He leaned closer and allowed a quaint,
half-bantering, wholly diffident smile to cross his face. "I--I'm afraid
that you are the only being on earth who can make the story thoroughly
plausible."

"I?" she demanded quickly. Their eyes met, and the wonder suddenly left
hers. She blushed furiously. "Nonsense!" she said, and abruptly left him
to take a seat beside Katherine Rodney. He found small comfort in the
whisperings and titterings that came, willy-nilly, to his burning ears
from the corner of the compartment. He had a disquieting impression that
they were discussing him; it was forced in upon him that being a
brother-in-law is not an enviable occupation.