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By Root 5739 0

whose scent had disturbed him for some time. Reverently, with the tip of a finger, he jabbed at the softness of the crimson petals, then bent over to sniff exhaustively. This rather stagey, for him rather conscious, action showed he knew he stood where she might not wish him to stand—outside a shut door, a forgotten messenger for whom there might be an answer and might not. Perplexity, reverence, readiness to be sad or reliable showed in every line of his attitude. He would be glad to move, if she only gave him the word. It was not his habit to take notice of flowers, or of any small object in a room, and by giving the roses such undue attention, he placed himself in an uneasy relation to them. He jabbed once more and said: "Do these come from the country?"

"Yes. And your nice carnations have just died."

Or was it likely he could be missing a cue, that Anna might have created this special moment in which it was his business to ask bluntly: Look here, just what did happen? Where's the whole thing gone to? Why are you not Mrs. Pidgeon? You are still you, and he still sounds like himself. You both being you was once all right with you both. You are still you—what has gone wrong since?

He looked at her—and the delicate situation made his eye as nearly shifty as it could ever be. He looked, and found her not looking at him. Instead, she took a handkerchief from her bag and blew the tip of her nose in a rapid, businesslike way. If she ever did seem to deliberate, it was while she put away the handkerchief. She said: "I should not be such a monster if Pidgeon had not put the idea into my head."

"My dear girl—"

"Yes, I must be; everyone thinks I am. That horrid little Eddie rang me up at lunch to tell me I was unkind to Portia."

"Good heavens!"

"You don't really like Eddie, do you?"

"Well, he's not much my sort. But look here, I mean to say—"

"Robert thought nothing of me," said Anna laughing. "Did you not know that? He thought nothing of me at all. Nothing really happened; I did not break his heart. Under the circumstances—you see now what they were, don't you?—we could hardly marry, as you must surely see."

He mumbled: "I expect it all turned out for the best."

"Of course," said Anna, smiling again.

He said quickly: "Of course," looking round the handsome room.

"But how I do skip from one thing to another," she went on, with the greatest ease in the world. "The past is never really the thing that matters—I just thought I'd clear that up about Robert and me. No, if I do seem a little rattled today, it is from being rung up in the middle of lunch and told by a stray young man that Portia is not happy. What am I to do? You know how quiet she is; things must have gone really rather a long way for her to complain to an outside person like that. Though, of course, Eddie is very inquisitive."

"If I may be allowed to say so," said Major Brutt, "it sounds to me the most unheard of, infernal cheek on his part. And that is to put it mildly. I must say I really never—"

"He always is cheeky, the little bastard," she said, reflectively tapping the mantelpiece. "But it is Portia that I'm worried about. It all sounds so unlike her. Major Brutt, you know us fairly well as a family: do you think Portia's happy?"

"Allowing, poor kid, for having just lost her mother, it never struck me she could be anything else. She seemed to fit in as though she'd been born here. As girls go, she has quite the ideal life."

"Or is that the nice way you see things? We do give her more freedom than most girls of sixteen, but she seemed old enough for it: she took care of her mother. But I see now that a girl has to be older before she can choose her friends—especially young men."

"You mean, there's been a bit much of that little chap?"

"It looks rather like that now. Of course, I blame myself rather. He has always been a good deal at this house—he's lonely, and we've tried to be nice to him. Except for that, I do think during the winter Portia got on very happily here. She seemed to be settling down. Then, as you know, she went away to the seaside,