ible dreams. Perhaps
Aymer won't want either of us now he has got Christopher."

"I wonder now," remarked Nevil, depositing Miss Charlotte on a seat
while he took out his cigarette case, "I wonder if you are jealous,
Renata."

She flushed indignantly and denied the fact with most unnecessary
emphasis, so her husband told her in his gentle teasing way. He turned
her face up to his and professed to look stern, which he never could
do.

"Confess now," he insisted. "Just a little jealous of Christopher?"

"Well," she admitted, laughing and still pink, "Aymer has never stayed
away from us for so long before. I don't know what was the use of his
having those rooms done up for himself if he never means to use
them."

Renata continued to pick violets, and Max to decapitate those he could
find. The dachshund and kitten continued to watch with absorbing
interest, and Nevil continued to smoke and to let Charlotte
investigate his cigarette case till her mother turned round and saw
her.

"You dreadful child!" she cried, "Nevil, just look. Charlotte is
sucking the ends of your horrid cigarettes! How can you let her?"

Charlotte was rescued from the cigarettes, or the cigarettes from
Charlotte, with considerable difficulty and at the cost of many tears.
Indeed her protestations were so loud that nurse appeared and bore her
and Max away and silence again reigned in the warm garden between the
sunny borders.

The dachshund gave a sigh and flopped down on the path, and the kitten
began a toilet for want of better employment. Renata, who had stood
aside during the small domestic storm, gazed at her violets gravely
as if she were counting them.

Nevil watched her contentedly and did not observe the trouble in her
face.

"Nevil," she said at last, "about Charlotte I wonder--do you
think----" she stopped and edged a little nearer her husband and
slipped her hand in his.

"Well, dear?"

"You don't think, do you, Nevil, that Charlotte is--is getting like
Patricia?"

He put his arm round her and drew her down on the seat.

"You dear silly child, no," he said, kissing her.

She seemed only half assured and leant her head against him, sighing.

"It is quite, quite different," he insisted. "Charlotte's temper is
just like anyone else's, yours or mine, or anyone's."

"Yours--you haven't got one," she returned with pretended contempt and
then lapsed back into her troubled mien, "but I feel so frightened
sometimes."

"My de