time, blaming Lucia for giving her an attack of hay-fever, for playing lawn-tennis before the alternate Tuesdays, for marrying, for giving parties when she should have been sitting with her aunt. And she had been just the same with Cathie. Yet now, months after her death, Aunt Cathie "made a face"—that was the only way to express it—because Lucia said that having tea this afternoon reminded her of having tea at Brixham, whereas Aunt Elizabeth had been there then, and was not here now. She began to wish she had not asked Aunt Cathie, but then, looking at the solicitous face of her husband opposite, she came to the conclusion that she had chosen the lesser of two evils.
Then, having already told Edgar to pull himself together, Lucia began to perceive that she wanted pulling together herself. If she was going to look out for annoyances, she would, without any difficulty, find quite sufficient to make these weeks intolerable. To do that would be inflicting additional punishment on herself, and surely she had quite enough to bear already. It was much wiser to see the ridiculous, the humorous aspect of things, if that could be discovered. Everything had its humorous aspect to the diligent inquirer, and Lucia determined that no effort on her part should be lacking in the search for it.
As always, honest effort had its reward, and after dinner she found much more amusement in observing Edgar showing Aunt Cathie those immense tomes of foreign travel, copiously illustrated with photographs, than she had often found at the play. She herself was reading, or rather dipping into, a new book, which had the reputation of being both witty and improper, but she dipped more and more rarely as this matchless demonstration proceeded.
"Yes, from there we went to Palestine," said Edgar, "and travelled right through it. See, Lucia put on the title-page of the section, 'From Dan even to Beersheba.' We often thought over that text."
Lucia had a little silent spasm of laughter. That had been a fine and subtle idea of hers. But surely it was difficult to think over the text "From Dan even to Beersheba." You sat down to think it over; what thoughts came?
Edgar proceeded.
"And then, you see, I gummed in a little piece from one of the cedars of Lebanon. Lucia dearest, we do not disturb you, do we? Do you remember the afternoon on Mount Carmel?"
