culties with men. Miss Thompkins
insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she had the sharpest contempt
for flirtation, and as a practice put it on a level with embezzlement or
arson. Miss Thompkins, however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded
herself as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions on vital
matters changed almost weekly, but she was always absolutely sure that the
new opinion was final and incontrovertible. Her scorn of the old English
Audrey, though concealed, was terrific.

And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was never half a
second late, now, in replying when addressed as "Mrs. Moncreiff."
Frequently she thought that she in fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very
advantageous state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It
opened wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish codes. It
abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety. Its chief defect,
for Audrey, was that if she met another widow, or even a married woman, she
had to take heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor wives
were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had attained skill in the
use of the state of widowhood. She told no more infantile perilous tales
about husbands who ate peas with a knife. In her thankfulness that the
tyrannic Rosamund had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had vanished
back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to take to heart the lesson of
a semi-hysterical blunder.

She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content. And at the door
of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge's wife was standing. She
was a new wife, the young mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only
been illuminating the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in a
space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was plump and pretty,
and also she was fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a
striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with
art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved
to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering
with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her
tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well and
answer so fluently.

The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about forty minutes in t