not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates
is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative
power.

CHAPTER XXXII

She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they had
finally decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs. Charles
Wilcox was announced.

"Have you heard the news?" Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
"Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather, that
you don't know."

"Why, Dolly!" said Margaret, placidly kissing her. "Here's a surprise!
How are the boys and the baby?"

Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there
had been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong
people had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older
inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the tax-collector had
said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she closed the description
with, "But lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst."

"It will be very jolly," replied Margaret.

"Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?"

"Of course not."

"Charles has never seen the plans."

"They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor--no, that's
rather difficult. Try the elevation, We are to have a good many gables
and a picturesque sky-line."

"What makes it smell so funny?" said Dolly, after a moment's inspection.
She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.

"I suppose the paper."

"And WHICH way up is it?"

"Just the ordinary way up. That's the sky-line and the part that smells
strongest is the sky."

"Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what was I going to say? How's
Helen?"

"Quite well."

"Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it's awfully odd
she doesn't."

"So it is," said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was
getting rather sore on this point. "Helen is odd, awfully. She has now
been away eight months."

"But hasn't she any address?"

"A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
line. I will look it up for you."

"No, don't bother. That's eight months she has been away, surely?"

"Exactly. She left just after Evie's wedding. It would be eight months."

"Just when baby was born, then?"

"Just so."

Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles's were not
well off, for Mr. Wilcox, havi