Joseph was full of thanks when she saw him at night.

Some days later he asked Marie Louise to meet Nicky outside a Bond
Street shop. She was to have a small parcel and drop it. Nicky would
stoop and pick it up and hand her in its stead another of similar
wrapper. She was to thank him and come home.

Another day Marie Louise received from Sir Joseph a letter and a
request to take the children with her for a long walk, ending at the
Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. The children carried their private
navies with them and squatted at the brim of the huge basin, poking
their reluctant yachts to sea. The boy Victor perfected a wonderful
scheme for using a long stick as a submarine. He thrust his arm under
water and from a distance knocked his sister's sailboat about till its
canvas was afloat and it filled and sank. All the while he wore the
most distant of expressions, but canny little Bettina soon realized
who had caused this catastrophe and how, and she went for Victor of
the U-stick with finger-nails and feet and nearly rounded him into the
toy ocean. It evidently made a difference whose ship was gored.

Marie Louise darted forward to save Victor from a ducking as well as a
trouncing, and nearly ran over a man who was passing.

It was Ross Davidge, whiling away an hour between appointments. He
thought he recognized Marie Louise, but he was not sure. Women in the
morning look so unlike their evening selves. He dared not speak.

Davidge lingered around trying to get up the courage to speak, but
Marie Louise was too distraught with the feud even to see him when she
looked at him. She would not have known him, anyway.

Davidge was confirmed in his guess at her identity by the appearance
of the man he had seen at her side at the dinner. But the confirmation
was Davidge's exile, for the fellow lifted his hat with a look of
great surprise and said to Marie Louise, "Fancy finding you heah!"

"Blah!" said Davidge to himself, and went on about his business.

Marie Louise did not pretend surprise at seeing Easton, but went on
scolding Victor and Bettina.

"If any of these other boys catch you playing submarine they'll
submarine you!"

And she brought the proud Bettina to book with a, "You were so glad
the _Lusitania_ was sunk, you see now how it feels!"

She felt the puerile incongruity of the rebuke, but it sufficed to
send Bettina into a cyclone of grief. She was already one of those
who are infinitely indifferent t