ll go to England to fetch her. I
should like her to know you--very much. She is younger than you are, but
only a little, I think."

"I shall be delighted, if I am here," Audrey stammered, and she rose. "You
are a very kind woman. Very, very amiable. You do not know how much I
admire you. I wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only one
side of me. You should see the inside. It is very strange. I must go to
London. I am forced to go to London. I should be a coward if I did not go
to London. Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?"

Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.

"It is good," said Madame Piriac. "But your maid is not all that she ought
to be. However, it is good."

"If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should not have been
content," said Audrey, and kissed Madame Piriac in the English way, the
youthful and direct way.

Not another word about the male sex, the female sex, tradition or
individualism, passed between them.

Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the river to the right bank.
They went in a taxi. He was protective and very silent. But just as the cab
was turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione he said:

"I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is a great pleasure for an
old, lonely man to keep a secret for a young and charming woman. A greater
pleasure than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me. I am not a
talker, but you have put me under an obligation, and I am very grateful."

She took care that her thanks should reward him.

"Winnie," she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy of the bedroom, "has
Elise gone to bed? ... All right. Well, I'm lost. Madame Piniac is going
to England to fetch me."

CHAPTER XX

PAGET GARDENS

"Has anything happened in this town?" asked Audrey of Miss Ingate.

It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival in London from
Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They were walking from the Charing
Cross Hotel, where they had slept, to Paget Gardens.

"Anything happened?" repeated Miss Ingate. "What you mean? I don't see
anything vehy particular on the posters."

"Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with people in Paris."

"So they do! So they do!" cried Miss Ingate. "Oh, yes! So they do! I
wondered what it was seemed so queer. That's it. Well, of course you
mustn't forget we're in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar
place."

"Do