And firstly it was presented to her mind as the paramount fact, that it was the mention of this man--this Michael Field, so-called--that had been the direct cause of Pia's odd irritability, and not the indirect cause, as she most erroneously had imagined. Somehow, in some way, he had caused her such pain that the mere mention of his name had been like laying a hand roughly on a wound. Secondly, though Trix most promptly dismissed the memory, there was Pia's hurting little speech, the speech which had followed on her--Trix's--theories promulgated beneath the lime trees. In the light of Miss Tibbutt's letter that speech was easy enough of explanation. Had not Pia had practical proof of the unworkableness of those theories? Proof which must have hurt her quite considerably. How utterly and entirely childish her words must have seemed to Pia,--Pia who _knew_, while she truly was merely surmising, setting forth ideas which assuredly she had never attempted to put into practice. Thirdly--Trix ticked off the facts on her fingers--there was the amazing little game of cross-questions. That too was entirely explained. How precisely it was explained she did not attempt to put into actual formulated words. Nevertheless she perceived quite clearly that it was explained. And lastly there was Pia's letter to her, the letter which had vainly tried to hide the bitterness which had prompted it. Clear as daylight now was the explanation of that letter. Buoyed up by Trix's advice, by Trix's eloquence, she had once more attempted to put the high-sounding theories into practice. And it had proved a failure, an utter and complete failure.
All these things fell at once into place, fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle, an unfinished puzzle, nevertheless. The largest pieces were still scattered haphazard on the board, and there seemed extremely little prospect of fitting them into the rest. How had Pia ever met the man? What was he doing at Chorley Old Hall? And why was he pretending to be Michael Field, when she--Trix--now knew him to be Antony Gray? The last two proved the greatest difficulty, nor could Trix, for all her gazing into the fire, find the place they ought to occupy. She remembered, too, her own idea regarding the colour of that bubble. Was it possible that she had been right in her idea? Verily, if she had been, in the face of this new discovery, it opened up a yet more astounding problem. Pia actually and verily in love with the man, a man she believed to be under-gardener at the Hall,--Pia, the distant, the proud, the reserved Pia! It was amazing, unthinkable!