Youth wins

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CHAPTER I T HE journey from Paris had seemed endless

Although for the last hour the train had mounted wooded slopes, Mrs. Bickersteth’s eyes still ached from the glare of the sun on chalky hills. When they drew up at Bagnoles de l’Orne, she lowered herself on to the platform with the nervous deliberation of a solidly built woman recovering from an attack of phlebitis.

She felt dusty and dishevelled as she stood there, her weight on her sound leg, wondering where Piper was and bewildered by the shrill voices of a group, obviously French, gathered round the adjacent door. Such unnec¬ essary vehemence! Mrs. Bickersteth frowned at them.

But how smart the women looked! How exactly “right”—that was the word. The elderly lady, keen¬ eyed, became aware of defects, hitherto unrealized, in her own sober costume. Her hat was at the wrong angle; her skirt too short, whilst the coat was too long, though made on purpose for this visit by the tailor patronized by the county. (And a nice price he had charged too!) That dark woman was well over forty, not really slim when you looked closely, yet— Mrs. Bickersteth felt

i puzzled. How did they keep the smooth wave in their hair when her own, still thick though grey, would “go flat” and the “ends” straggle? The desolation of the fifties descended on her like a cloud.

No porters and where was Piper?

Ah, she was getting old too. A faint feeling of satis¬ faction, difficult to analyze, revived Mrs. Bickersteth’s drooping spirits. Recovering her dignity, she moved stiffly past the vociferous group, her finely cut nostrils protesting against the heavy wave of perfume that ema¬ nated from the women.

“And painted up to the eyes,” she decided. “That’s why they keep so fresh!”

Through the thinning crowd she could see at last the hurrying figure of her maid, tight-lipped, neat and shriv¬ elled. Up she came, panting, vexed.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I couldn’t get out—all chat¬ tering in the corridor!” Under her breath she fumed, “And keeping you standing with that bag.” She re¬ trieved the well-worn article and proffered a bony arm. “Now, ma’am, if you’ll lean on me, I’ll see you safely to the bus and then come back for the luggage.”

“One minute, Piper,” her mistress checked her. “Just look at that hat. No, there, on the woman in the beige dress. Don’t you think we could do something like it to the one I bought at Madame Olive’s? Give it a tilt up at the back?”

Piper obediently gazed—and sniffed.

“I don’t see any call for it, ma’am. She told you it was the latest fashion. A pity to spoil it, it suits you fine. What?” She glared at a porter who was volubly demanding luggage. “Not yet,” she told him severely, and repeated it in a louder voice.

Mrs. Bickersteth’s tired eyes twinkled.

“Bientot ” she said graciously, and drew herself up when the man, with an angry shrug, flung back a retort.

“Talk about manners!” snapped Piper. “But there, you don’t find ’em abroad. Now, ma’am.” She drew her forward. “I’ll be glad to get you into bed. You’re looking fairly done. Pardon?” They circled round a fat Frenchman and bumped into an excited child dressed in an aggressive tartan. “Your own fault—you should look!” Piper’s patience had given out.

In the depth of her faithful heart she had long since decided that this “cure” was a desperate venture. Far better to have stayed at home—where you knew what was in the food.

At length the weary business was over. Seated on the hot velvet of the stuffy omnibus, they rumbled across to the hotel, the journey a mere matter of minutes.

“Might ’a’ walked and saved the fare,” Piper grumbled to herself. “I only hope there’ll be a lift that’s not the sort where they shuts you in, helpless, with a row of but¬ tons.” She straightened her bony shoulders. “Here we are, ma’am,” she said aloud. “Now, be careful of the step!”

“Thank you, Piper, I can manage.” Mrs. Bickersteth, on her mettle, descended and entered the big hotel.

The hall was gloomy and uninviting; the spruce clerk indifferent. He pointed to the register and proffered a needle-pointed pen. Mrs. Bickersteth removed her gloves and wrote, rather shakily, her name on the space indicated, added “and maid,” with, beyond this, her address: “Torlish Manor, Devon, England.”

A chasseur, airily swinging the keys, took them up in the lift, to Piper’s relief, and they halted at the first floor, insisted upon by Adela; Adela, her dear daughter, Mrs. Bickersteth thought confusedly, married so well—a dar¬ ling baby! She stepped out on to the corridor and evad¬ ing Piper’s intention—no arm here, it was carpeted— moved alone after the page, the maid sedately in her wake.

A chambermaid bustled up, stout, benignant, and opened the door, with a cheerful: “Bon jour, madame” For the first floor brought good tips.

Mrs. Bickersteth entered the room.

“Oh!” She blinked with surprise and pleasure.

For the sunshine was pouring in over a low balcony that ran the length of the pair of windows; a solidly built af¬ fair with a parapet of terra-cotta, like a theatre-box facing the stage, set for some pastoral comedy. It looked too fertile to be real after the long, arid journey.

Wooded heights, deliciously green, were piled against the summer sky in a semi-circle enclosing a lake that shone in the near foreground; the white finger of a road pointed between gaps in the trees, or the sharp ear of a red roof rose from a hidden villa, on tiptoe, listening for a breath of romance.

Expectation—the key-note of youth. Mrs. Bickersteth nodded wisely. The message had reached her susceptible heart. With an effort she drew her eyes away and sur¬ veyed her new quarters. A good room, she decided, bare yet ornate, lacking “our English sense of comfort.”

“But nice and airy,” she said to Piper, “though the bed’s rather high from the floor.” She moved nearer to the window. “It is pretty. Look at the lake!”

But Piper was occupied, “measuring up” the chamber¬ maid.

“Hot water, to drink —you understand?” She made a vague gesture towards her mouth. “A buver —for tea. Are they bringing that luggage up?”

A loud bump outside the door answered the final ques¬ tion. Piper flew to retrieve the inverted picnic-hamper. Mrs. Bickersteth could hear behind her voices raised in expostulation, the shuffling of list slippers, more bumps and a man’s throat cleared with Gallic thoroughness.

“Yes, I’m in France,” she mused.

The door banged and Piper spoke.

“I’ll soon get you a cup o’ tea, ma’am. You’d better come and lay down.”

“In a minute. I must step out first.” She suited the action to the words.

“Then you’ll have a chair,” Piper scolded.

She seized the nearest one, in imitation Louis Quinze, wedged it through the opening and held it until her mis¬ tress subsided.

“Piper, do look at the lake?”

“Yes’m.”

Mrs. Bickersteth turned her head. Piper had gone back to the luggage! The elderly lady sighed.

“Treats me like a child,” she thought, leaning her arms on the parapet. “To be ordered about, at my age! I really get annoyed sometimes.” A sudden sense of in¬ gratitude smote her, a memory of long years of service. “Still, so devoted, I don’t know what I should do without her. It comes of course from having been the chil¬ dren’s nurse in the early days. She’s got into the way of ruling. Well, I don’t see that it matters much,” she concluded comfortably, “so long as she doesn’t correct me in public. And it’s heavenly to be out of the train.”

A little breeze, ruffling the lake beyond the road, stirred the bushes in the garden and wafted the scent of syringa . to her. The grass on the long slope was faded, though the month was only April, and the sand court for tennis glittered, shrouded in its wire nets like an enormous bird¬ cage. From this lower level, a flight of steps with terra¬ cotta balustrades rose to a wide terrace that stretched the length of the hotel. Peering down, she could see wicker chairs and little round tables, with marble tops, arranged in groups facing the view. It looked gay and inviting, suggesting a life passed in the open for purposes of leisure, of refreshment and conversation, as distinct from exercise.

“Foreign,” dreamed Mrs. Bickersteth. “And how they love to talk!”

She smiled at the thought. There would be plenty to study here from the vantage point of her theatre-box. She had a passion for watching people, inventing their life-histories, especially those of the young. Although her reasoning powers were faulty, she was often correct in a swift diagnosis of incipient love affairs. These were her speciality. The maternal instinct, strong in her, in¬ vited confidences too, piercing the reticent armour of youth. She was known privately, for miles round Torlish Manor, as “dear old Mrs. B.,” was aware of it and in¬ wardly proud, accepting the second adjective on the lips of the younger generation as a proof of comradeship. Not really “old,” but in her prime. Fifty-four was only an early milestone on the long downhill road. “Though I shan’t pretend when I get there,” she thought. “But I’m not going to bury myself just yet.”

A sound from below caught her attention. At this hour the terrace was bathed in silence, save for a steady murmuring voice directly beneath the balcony. Mrs. Bickersteth leaned forward, craning her neck, her knees pressed to the balustrade.

There, in the shade thrown by the walls, stretched on a chaise-longue, was an old lady, placidly knitting, whilst, seated close beside her, a girl read aloud from a book in her hands. At a little distance, perched sideways on the parapet, a young man surveyed the garden, idly swinging a tennis-racket. These were the only hotel visitors in sight, save a pair of children playing ball on the lower path.

Mrs. Bickersteth—a true woman—gave the young man her attention first. She liked the way he held himself in this careless position, shoulder-blades flat. She could see his tanned face in profile, vigorous and clean-cut, and she judged his age to be under thirty.

“He ought to have a hat on,” she thought, “sitting in the blaze of the sun.”

Her motherly heart warmed to him, noting the way his hair grew crisply, nut-brown on his well-shaped head, and the sinewy strength of his long hands. All young men were dear to her for the sake of a grave in Flanders. A slight film obscured her sight; Dicky had had the same bright hair.

Presently her interest deepened, as she caught him in a sidelong glance. She guessed why he was dawdling there. The attraction was the girl below and the sound of her soft, cool young voice.

A wide-brimmed hat screened her face and Mrs. Bickersteth peered in vain, as a fragment from the open book drifted up to her ears:

“ ‘Then he went in and closed the door and there was silence in the garden.’ ”

“English,” she thought delightedly. “The man too. He looks so clean.”

From behind came Piper’s voice:

“Now, ma’am, the bed’s all ready and the kettle will soon be on the boil.”

Mrs. Bickersteth patiently rose to her feet. The edge of the parapet was dusty. She picked up her gloves lying there and gave them a vigorous shake.

Something shot out of the chamois folds, caught the sun’s rays as it fell, and struck the tiled pavement below with a sharp, tinkling note.

“My emerald ring!” The cry escaped her.

The pair on the terrace looked up. Mrs. Bickersteth, even at such a moment, felt a thrill of curiosity. She caught a glimpse of a pale face, dead-gold hair and sap¬ phire eyes, under the disguising hat. Then her attention swerved.

For the young man had slipped from his perch and was coming forward eagerly.

“It’s rolled under your chair,” he told the girl. “Don’t you move—I’ll get it.”

Stooping, he thrust out a long arm, groped and retrieved the object.

“Here it is,” he informed the owner cheerfully, his eyes raised to the balcony. “Would you like me to bring it up to you?”

Mrs. Bickersteth beamed at him.

“Oh, don’t trouble! My maid will fetch it. So many thanks.” She looked down at the old lady. “I hope it didn’t startle you? It was lodged in my glove and when I shook it—”

“Not at all,” said the other suavely.

She seemed to ignore the young man. He stood there, hesitating. Then he handed the ring to the girl.

“Perhaps you’d better take care of it.”

She received it from him without a word, without so much as an answering glance, holding it in her slender fingers, apparently absorbed in the object.

“Thank you,” said the old lady coldly.

It was a dismissal. The young man nodded, wheeled round and made his way to the door that led into the hotel.

Mrs. Bickersteth felt sorry for him.

“Snubbed,” she thought. “And he didn’t deserve it!. Apparently they’re not acquainted.”

This upset her theories.

Piper, summoned by her cry, had already started on her mission. Mrs. Bickersteth saw her emerge and walk, in her own distinctive fashion, which suggested energy, discretion, and a careful balance between respect and a knowledge of her own worth, in the direction of the pair.

“Now,” thought Mrs. Bickersteth, and watched the ento

counter eagerly. “If they’re all right,” she thought, ‘“they’ll be nice. If not, they’ll snub Piper too.”

Nothing could have been more gracious than the re¬ ception afforded her maid. She heard the old lady say: “I hope it hasn’t loosened the stone?” and Piper’s prim rejoinder.

She was lost now in the shade of the walls, but the sound of her flat feet on the tiles rose to Mrs. Bickersteth’s ears.

The girl had opened the book again.

“Shall I go on?” she asked the old lady.

“Do, my dear, unless you’re tired.” She gathered up her discarded knitting.

Mrs. Bickersteth, above, with the sense of a scolding awaiting her, made use of the short reprieve to study the older woman. There was something both charming and intriguing about the slight figure, stretched at ease, and the picture she achieved of age, dignified yet faintly co¬ quettish. Her white hair was swept back from a forehead singularly free from lines and arranged in soft rolls on either temple. Over this was thrown a mantilla of Spanish lace, raised on a comb, the long ends knotted together and fastened by a pearl brooch. The delicate pink of her skin was enhanced by the sombre lace and by the shawl drawn round her shoulders, also black, with a silk fringe, and embroidered in heavily raised flowers, roses paled by time and use. A light rug was spread over her knees, but one foot had escaped the folds, shod in suMe with a steel buckle.

It was a foot which a girl might have envied, slender and arched, the ankle above, in its gossamer silk stocking, ii equally neat and arresting. Round her slight wrists were bands of black velvet secured by antique pearl clasps. Pearls gleamed in her little ears, and the mantilla was held in place by a tiny arrow set with brilliants.

“She looks like a French Marquise in the days of the guillotine,” Mrs. Bickersteth romanced. “I suppose they must be mother and daughter, though the girl is a dif¬ ferent type—Saxon. But why did they snub that good-looking boy? Coming, Piper!” Regretfully, she backed through the open window.

Refreshed by an hour’s sleep, Mrs. Bickersteth went down to dinner on the stroke of the gong.

Passing a mirror in the hall, she glanced sideways at her reflection. She was thoroughly satisfied. Last year’s garden-party dress, with the new trimming from Debenham’s that had cost seventeen and sixpence a yard, the jet comb upright in her hair and the London corsets which Adela had insisted upon—six suspenders that made the stockings so tight at the top, but certainly improved the figure—and Grannie’s old Chantilly shawl, beautifully darned by Piper. She could “hold her own” among the French! In England, patriotism was silent, not exactly good form, but once safely across the Channel she must not give way to “foreigners.” Especially at this juncture when the French were behaving disgracefully—every one in Torlish said so—over the question of the Ruhr.

This was the sum of her thoughts as she entered the long dining-room and was steered to a distant table in the folds of the leather screen that disguised the way to the kitchen.

She settled her skirts and looked around her.

On her left, almost at her elbow, the recess held another table, laid for one. A wide gulf divided the pair from a family party in the window, easy to diagnose; Gallic, adorned with napkins as bibs, vociferous, the elders ab¬ sorbed in the two little girls in their smart frocks and the son and heir, aged about twelve, with a white, precocious face and long legs bare to the thighs, ending in short striped socks and untanned yellow boots.

The legs shocked Mrs. Bickersteth as the boy twined them under his chair. There was nothing childish about them; they were nude and swarthy—unpardonable!

The boy’s sly eyes swerved to her face, aware of her disapproving glance. He leaned sideways sinuously and whispered in his father’s ear. There followed a shrill ex¬ plosion of mirth that rippled round the crowded table.

Mrs. Bickersteth stared past them, her Roman nose elevated, her eyes fixed on the door.

It opened, and in came the young man of the terrace episode.

He looked well in his dinner-jacket. The white ex¬ panse of shirt-front enhanced the healthy bronze of his skin—the result of hotter skies than these—and the clear¬ ness of his grey eyes. There was nothing to beat an Anglo-Saxon, that cold-tubbed look, the spectator de¬ cided.

He made his way easily in a bee-line for the screen.

“I believe he’s coming here,” she thought, and a touch of excitement warmed her cheeks, still smooth and fresh, above the folds of her double chin.

As he passed her table, she glanced at him, smiled

1 3 slightly and bowed. She divined a secret surprise and pleasure in his answering salutation.

“Poor boy, I believe he’s lonely!” she thought.

He settled himself in the chair on her left, picked up the menu, ran through it, and looked shyly at his neigh¬ bour.

Mrs. Bickersteth opened the attack.

“I must thank you for finding my ring,” she said. “It’s quite all right.” She touched the finger on which her treasure hung loosely, the result of weeks in bed which had thinned her “in the wrong places.” So she had writ¬ ten to Adela. “I was so afraid that the fall might have chipped the emerald. They’re such brittle stones and, as it happens, I’m very fond of this one. It was my mother’s engagement ring. But it isn’t even scratched,” she concluded.

“That’s lucky,” the young man responded. “I don’t know much about stones, but it seemed a mighty fine ring.”

Mrs. Bickersteth’s brown eyes narrowed. Not only the transatlantic expression, but something about his intona¬ tion brought a doubt into her mind. Characteristically, she proceeded to clear the ground at once.

“I was wondering who would come to your table,” she said in her pleasant, slow voice, and paused for the waiter to lay down her soup-plate. “And I hoped it would be some one English. I’m not very good at speaking French, although, of course, I know the language, and when one’s alone—” She left it unfinished.

“Sure.” The word was sympathetic. More so were the grey eyes turned on her for a minute.

“Then you are English?” she insisted.

“Rather!” He smiled. “Did you think I was Ameri¬ can? I suppose it’s from having lived there for the last five years. This is my first trip home since I went to California. I’ve been already chaffed about it,” he added confidentially. “It’s catching, you know, the way they speak. And”—he hesitated—“quicker. That’s what struck me on my return. We don’t have the same vivid expressions. But everything’s slower. Not that I don’t love old England—and especially since the War and the way she has stood being taxed to the limit and is paying off her debts—but sometimes I wish she’d get a move on! Not only in business but—other ways.”

Mrs. Bickersteth felt that the young man had checked himself. She looked at him inquiringly, an invitation in her glance.

“Yes?” So soft and comfortable was her voice that her neighbour yielded to it.

“Well, for instance, you’re the first stranger who has spoken to me anywhere since I left the boat at Liverpool. I’ve been here a full week,” he complained, “and I was getting desperate! Of course, from the French, one doesn’t expect it, but one’s own countrymen— You see, in the War it was different. I didn’t exactly realize that we’d gone back to the old ways.” His voice sounded apologetic, but there was faint pain in his eyes.

Mrs. Bickersteth remembered the snub administered on the terrace. She gave him her most motherly smile, pleased by his spontaneity.

“It must have been dreadfully dull for you. Are there many English here?”

i5

“No.” His attention was diverted.

Mrs. Bickersteth followed his glance. Through the doorway afar she could see the pair approaching who were uppermost in her mind: the little old lady, pictur¬ esque in a gown of grey taffeta that shone like silver as she moved, the tall, pale girl by her side, her golden head held languidly on the frail column of her neck, her sap¬ phire eyes half-closed under the full, drooping lids.

For a second, as she gazed at them, Mrs. Bickersteth was caught by a disturbing illusion. It seemed to her that their roles were inverted: that age had changed places with youth.

That silvery figure, so light on her feet, so dainty and vivacious, advanced with a subtle air of conquest, one hand on her daughter’s arm, bowing and smiling to friends as she passed, whilst the girl in her narrow, russet frock, seemed her shadow, sad as an autumn leaf swayed by the wind and aware that the glamour of summer had de¬ parted.

The head-waiter hurried forward to usher the pair to a central table with every mark of respect. He took from the girl a soft, grey cloak, with a collar of chinchilla and draped it on the back of the older woman’s chair, beckoned to an understudy, bowed, smiled and departed.

The commonplace incident restored the watcher’s nor¬ mal balance. Once more she placed them as mother and daughter.

The old lady glanced behind her and gave a pettish shrug of her shoulders under their fichu of Mechlin lace. Immediately the young one rose and arranged the cloak round the fragile form, carefully, leaving her arms free.

i6

Mrs. Bickersteth watched this approvingly, yet with a sense of something missing, a link with the past which she could not catch. She turned again to her table neigh¬ bour.

“It’s odd,” she said. “I have a feeling that I’ve met those two before—the table you are looking at. Do you happen to know their name?”

She saw him give a little start, as if he had forgotten her presence.

“The old lady with the daughter? It’s Verney—the Honourable Mrs. Verney.”

“No?” Mrs. Bickersteth was excited. “But of course I’ve met them! Down in Norfolk. Years ago, before the War. They came to a house where we were staying—to a tennis-party—and every one was talking about Miss Verney’s engagement to Roland Scrope. So young, only seventeen, and such a brilliant match.” She paused, aware of the young man’s expression, startled and in¬ credulous.

“Before the War? But she isn’t married.”

“No—let me think? He was killed. In the same year as—as our son. The girl must be”—she made a swift calculation—“nearly twenty-seven now.”

“Killed?” He was frowning. “Is that why she looks like that?”

“Like what?” Again Mrs. Bickersteth felt both curious and uneasy. There was something wrong, then?

“Oh, I don’t know.” His voice was muffled. “As if life weren’t good enough.”

Mrs. Bickersteth nodded dumbly; she was always afraid of bones in fish.

“Of course,” said the young man hastily, “I’m only talking by guess work. I don’t—er—know them to speak to, but being English, I’m interested. More than in the foreign crowd. Especially as we travelled together. That is, as far as Paris.”

“No? And then you found them here?” Mrs. Bickersteth nobly signed to the waiter, who bore off the remains of her whiting. Her instinct for romance had triumphed over her appetite. “You stayed in Paris?”

“The week-end.” He looked nervous. “Then I got fed-up with it. Somehow in the War it seemed more cheery altogether. Contrast, I reckon, or perhaps having pals blow in.”

Into Mrs. Bickersteth’s brain flashed an illuminating thought. He had learned the Verneys’ destination and followed them blindly to Bagnoles! Love at first sight? They had met on the boat and he had got into their car¬ riage at Calais. Luggage-labels? Her heart glowed. Unless— She must settle this doubt at once.

“Are you taking the cure here?” she inquired.

“In a sort of way.” He avoided her glance.

“Not for phlebitis, surely?”

“What’s that?”

She explained: a clot in a vein from some accident, or a gouty tendency.

“My own trouble,” she added bravely. “My father was a martyr to gout.”

“Hard luck,” said the young man. “But it’s gone now, I hope?” He looked quite anxious until she had reassured him. “Mine’s only rheumatism, which I picked up in the trenches. Seemed to me a sound move to stun it at i8 one of these French places during my holiday abroad. Not that it troubles me often now, thanks to a dry cli¬ mate.”

“You’re quite right to take it in time.” Mrs. Bickersteth hid her amusement. She guessed that it was an ex¬ cuse. Why should a healthy young man spend his holiday at a thermal station among a crowd of invalids? And this wasn’t even like Aix or Vichy. She added, with a flicker of mischief, “Though I didn’t understand that Bagnoles was good for rheumatic complaints?”

“Oh, it’s good for anything,” he laughed, “according to the resident doctors.”

“I suppose so.” Mrs. Bickersteth’s chin vibrated in sympathy with her thoughts. “This isn’t goat, is it?” She examined the meat on her plate. “I’ve always been afraid of goat since I once stayed in Switzerland and ate it with¬ out knowing.”

“Veal, according to the menu.”

A pause ensued, for Mrs. Bickersteth was hungry. Be¬ tween mouthfuls, her gaze sought the central table. What a romance! She saw her way to helping that nice boy by her side. Yes, a proper introduction. Of course Mrs.. Verney was careful, with a beautiful girl like that. But— was she beautiful? Mrs. Bickersteth scrutinized her. Her features were delicately chiselled; her hair and eyes would move an artist. Yet always there was that missing factor: a sense of youth and vitality.

“Anaemic,” Mrs. Bickersteth thought. “If she were my daughter I’d give her iron. She’s too lethargic. Her lips are pale. It can’t be from the old shock now? At nine¬ teen a girl forgets. Time is merciful to the young.

Though I wonder she didn’t marry him. A long engage¬ ment, two years? Especially in those days when young people refused to wait. And even before! I remember the time we went through when Henry and Christabel were married. Such a rush getting the trousseau. Still, they’re very happy now. Youth sometimes knows best.”

She refused the vegetable course. Why couldn’t they serve it with the meat? Such diminutive peas—not worth eating. Bottled perhaps? Her thoughts slipped back to her first meeting with the Verneys. In those happy days before the War—yes, in 1913—and the easy country life, hospitable, hedged about with reverence for her own class, with neighbourly feeling and traditions. She could see once more the pretty girl— “Joceline,” that was her name! —in the first bloom of her youth, radiant, walking with her lover, laughing, talking, suddenly shy when congratu¬ lations were showered on the pair. In those days she had a colour that came and went in her rounded cheeks, her hair as bright as spun silk. But the mother—Mrs. Bickersteth wondered, as a picture slowly rose in her mind.

A background figure, slight and dark, carefully dressed in a country fashion, redeemed from insignificance by her dignified manner and well-bred voice, but with none of her present allurement. She had then been past her prime, for her daughter had come to her late in life, and she suffered from indifferent health, a little overpowered by, her husband, a well-known shot and keen sportsman, her junior by ten years. Mrs. Bickersteth suddenly remem¬ bered that he had been killed during the War, the victim of a Zeppelin raid on an East Coast town, where he had served in some official capacity.

A widow? Did that account for the change? Mrs. Bickersteth was intrigued.

“It’s strange,” she thought, “how in England one meets so many widows and so few widowers. It’s the men who marry again.”

How often, too, widowhood seemed to renew the youth in a certain shallow type of woman. What was the se¬ cret? A sense of power, of holding the reins of govern¬ ment in indisputed command of the income? At least when the survivor was rich, and the Verneys all possessed money. Despite sorrow, to reign at last, unchallenged; to “own” instead of sharing. To be free—Mrs. Bicker¬ steth, old-fashioned and loving her quiet husband, shrank from the obvious conclusion—free, to attract other men. An Indian summer of Romance.