a bit ashamed of herself." "Did you read him the letter?" interrupted Aliette. "No. But I wrote to the woman; and she wrote back, thanking me. Thanking me!" Mollie's voice rose. "She'd decided that 'after all, and especially as he was so bad, it would be better not to tell him. Would I burn her silly letter?' I think that's beastly." Her violet eyes kindled. "I'm not a prig. I don't believe divorce is wrong. But I do consider it dirty, when a woman or a man do--that sort of thing." Aliette's face, smooth on its pillows between braided coils, gave no hint of the thoughts in her mind. Vaguely she resented an unmarried girl, or, in fact, any woman discussing "that sort of thing"; but her resentment, she knew, would only make the younger generation laugh. The younger generation of girls, as represented by Mollie, did not believe in squeamishness. Perhaps--Aliette seemed to remember that Julia Cavendish had touched on the subject in her last novel--the younger generation were no less virtuous because they faced facts instead of hiding their heads, ostrich-like, in the sands of innocence. "I don't see," Mollie's decided voice closed the conversation, "why being in love should prevent one from playing the game." She rose, gathered her dressing-gown round her, asked if she should blow out the candle, did so, and made for the door. "By the way," said the figure silhouetted against the glow of the corridor-lamp, "I suppose there's a service at Key Hatch tomorrow afternoon. If there is, let's go. It's such a ripping little church; and I can't bear being preached to by Adrian." "If you like, dear," replied an unguarded Aliette. But when the door closed and she lay alone in darkness, her mind reverted to its problem, to that peculiar omission of Ronald Cavendish's name.

Morning broke to gusts of rain. Hector locked himself in the library; the admiral inspected his greenhouses; Mollie refused to get up; and Aliette wrote letters. Somehow, the letters took a long while to write. She found herself, pen in raised hand, dreaming. In her day-dreams happiness and dissatisfaction mingled incoherently, as the voices of two people heard through a wall. She could not catch the words of the voices, only the tones of them: one low-laughing, the other querulous. For the first time since girlhood--and even in girlhood she had been deliberate--deliberate thought abandoned her. She felt content that her mind should drift idly through an idle day. Only when Mollie--appearing brogued and tweeded for luncheon--reminded her of the agreed church-going, did her brain resume its normal function. "In all probability I shall see Ronald Cavendish"--the thought came startlingly as Aliette watched Hector at work on the inevitable roast beef 

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