times and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinking
too much is for me, and if I might----"

"Why, of course, Mr. Breton--whenever you like."

Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she looked
quite pretty.

"I expect you could advise me--help me in lots of ways----"

"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got to
ask--Good night----"

The door closed behind her.

He went up to his room, a less miserable man.

CHAPTER IX

THE GOLDEN CAGE

"She gives away because she overflows. She has her own feelings,
her own standards; she doesn't keep remembering that she must be
proud."--_The Lesson of the Master._

I

Those weeks were, to Rachel, a golden time. She did not pretend to deny
or examine their golden quality--they were far, far better than she had
imagined anything could ever be, and that was enough. She had never,
very definitely, imagined to herself this "coming out," but it had been,
at any rate, behind its possible glories, a period of terror. "All those
people" was the way that, with frightened eyes, she had contemplated it.

And now the kindness that there had been! All the London world had
surely nothing to do but to pay her compliments, to surround her with
courtesies, to flatter her every wish. Even Aunt Adela had under the
general enthusiasm, blossomed a little into good-will, even Uncle
Richard had remembered to wish her well, even the Duke had cracked
applause, and as for Uncle John! ... he was like an amiable conjurer
whose best (and also most difficult) trick had achieved an absolute
triumph.

And behind all this there was more. May, June and the early part of July
showered such weather upon London as had surely never been showered
before, and these brilliant days dressed, for Rachel, her brilliant
success in cloth of gold and emblazoned robes. She felt the presence of
London for the first time, as the hot weather came beating up the
streets and the brilliant whites and blues and greens and reds flung
back to the burning blue their contrast and splendour.

She felt, for the first time, her own especial London, and now the grey
cool cluster of buildings at one end of blazing Portland Place and the
dark green of the hovering park at the other end had a new meaning for
her, as though she had only just come to live here and was seeing it all
for the first time. In the streets that hung about Portland Place she