Isabel and Lottie sat one on either side of the table, Kezia at the bottom — the place at the top was empty.

“That’s where my boy ought to sit,” thought Stanley. He tightened his arm round Linda’s shoulder. By God, he was a perfect fool to feel as happy as this!

“We are, Stanley. We are very snug,” said Mrs Fairfield, cutting Kezia’s bread into fingers.

“Like it better than town — eh, children?” asked Burnell.

“Oh, yes,” said the three little girls, and Isabel added as an after-thought: “Thank you very much indeed, father dear.”

“Come upstairs,” said Linda. “I’ll bring your slippers.”

But the stairs were too narrow for them to go up arm in arm. It was quite dark in the room. He heard her ring tapping on the marble mantelpiece as she felt for the matches.

“I’ve got some, darling. I’ll light the candles.”

But instead he came up behind her and again he put his arms round her and pressed her head into his shoulder.

“I’m so confoundedly happy,” he said.

“Are you?” She turned and put her hands on his breast and looked up at him.

“I don’t know what has come over me,” he protested.

It was quite dark outside now and heavy dew was falling. When Linda shut the window the cold dew touched her finger tips. Far away a dog barked. “I believe there is going to be a moon,” she said.

At the words, and with the cold wet dew on her fingers, she felt as though the moon had risen — that she was being strangely discovered in a flood of cold light. She shivered; she came away from the window and sat down upon the box ottoman beside Stanley.

—

In the dining room, by the flicker of a wood fire, Beryl sat on a hassock playing the guitar. She had bathed and changed all her clothes. Now she wore a white muslin dress with black spots on it and in her hair she had pinned a black silk rose.

Nature has gone to her rest, love,

        See, we are alone.

Give me your hand to press, love,

        Lightly within my own.

She played and sang half to herself, for she was watching herself playing and singing. The firelight gleamed on her shoes, on the ruddy belly of the guitar, and on her white fingers….

“If I were outside the window and looked in and saw myself I really would be rather struck,” thought she. Still more softly she played the accompaniment — not singing now but listening.

“… The first time that I ever saw you, little girl — oh, you had no idea that you were not alone — you were sitting with your little feet upon a hassock, playing the guitar. God, I can never forget….” Beryl flung up her head and began to sing again:

“Even the moon is aweary …”

But there came a loud bang at the door. The servant girl’s crimson face popped through.

“Please, Miss Beryl, I’ve got to come and lay.”

“Certainly, Alice,” said Beryl, in a voice of ice. She put the guitar in a corner. Alice lunged in with a heavy black iron tray.

“Well, I have had a job with that oving,” said she. “I can’t get nothing to brown.”

“Really!” said Beryl.

But no, she could not stand that fool of a girl. She ran into the dark drawing-room and began walking up and down…. Oh, she was restless, restless. There was a mirror over the mantel. She leaned her arms along and looked at her pale shadow in it. How beautiful she looked, but there was nobody to see, nobody.

“Why must you suffer so?” said the face in the minor. “You were not made for suffering…. Smile!”

Beryl smiled, and really her smile was so adorable that she smiled again — but this time because she could not help it.

VIII

“Good morning, Mrs Jones.”

“Oh, good morning, Mrs Smith. I’m so glad to see you. Have you brought your children?”

“Yes, I’ve brought both my twins.