st."

"You are a most undutiful wife," Helen pronounced severely. "I am sure
Henry is a delightful person, even if he is a little irresponsible, and
it is almost pathetic to remember how much you were in love with him, a
year or two ago."

Some of the lightness vanished from Philippa's face.

"That was before the war," she sighed.

"I still think Henry is a dear, though I don't altogether understand
him," Helen said thoughtfully.

"No doubt," Philippa assented, "but you'd find the not understanding him
a little more galling, if you were his wife. You see, I didn't know that
I was marrying a sort of sporting Mr. Skimpole."

"I wonder," Helen reflected, "how Henry and Mr. Lessingham will get on
when they see more of one another."

"I really don't care," Philippa observed indifferently.

"I used to notice sometimes--that was soon after you were married,"
Helen continued, "that Henry was just a little inclined to be jealous."

Philippa withdrew her eyes from the sea. There was a queer little smile
upon her lips.

"Well, if he still is," she said, "I'll give him something to be jealous
about."

"Poor Mr. Lessingham!" Helen murmured.

Philippa's eyebrows were raised.

"Poor Mr. Lessingham?" she repeated. "I don't think you'll find that
he'll be in the least sorry for himself."

"He may be in earnest," Helen reminded her friend. "You can be horribly
attractive when you like, you know, Philippa."

Philippa smiled sweetly.

"It is just possible," she said, "that I may be in earnest myself. I've
quarrelled pretty desperately with Henry, you know, and I'm a helpless
creature without a little admiration."

Helen rose suddenly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed upon a figure
approaching through the wood.

"You really aren't respectable, Philippa," she declared. "Throw away
your cigarette, for heaven's sake, and sit up. Some one is coming."

Philippa only moved her head lazily. The sunlight, which came down in
a thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell straight
upon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its unexpressed evasive
charm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour in the red-gold of her
disordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was stretched almost at full
length, one leg drawn a little up, her hands carelessly drooping towards
the grass. The cigarette was still burning in the corner of her lips.

"I decline," she said, "to throw away my cigarette for any one."

"Least of all,