"I should have thought him to have had a good memory," she said.

"I have always been led to believe that he was once sent away from
college in his youth,--for his health," he explained significantly. "No
man has a good memory who can't remember that. Perhaps the battle of
Gettysburg wiped it out."

Thus, in his own easy-going fashion, Mr. Pembroke sought to distract her.
She put on a hat, and they walked about, the various scenes recalling
incidents of holidays he had spent at Highlawns. And after a while Honora
was thankful that chance had sent her in this hour to him rather than to
Mrs. Kame. For the sight, that morning of this lady in her dressing-gown
over the stairway, had seemingly set the seal on a growing distaste. Her
feeling had not been the same about Mrs. Rindge: Mrs. Kame's actions
savoured of deliberate choice, of an inherent and calculating wickedness.

Had the distraction of others besides himself been the chief business of
Mr. Pembroke's life, he could not have succeeded better that afternoon.
He must be given this credit: his motives remain problematical; at length
he even drew laughter from her. The afternoon wore on, they returned to
the garden for tea, and a peaceful stillness continued to reign about
them, the very sky smiling placidly at her fears. Not by assuring her
that Hugh was unusual horseman, that he had passed through many dangers
beside which this was a bagatelle, could the student of the feminine by
her side have done half so well. And it may have been that his success
encouraged him as he saw emerging, as the result of his handiwork, an
unexpectedly attractive--if still somewhat serious-woman from the gloom
that had enveloped her. That she should still have her distrait moments
was but natural.