and struggling, straining, angry and despairing humanity, from
syndicated shops and all the embarrassing challenges of life. Somehow
there it would be possible to keep Sir Isaac at arm's length; and the
ghost of Susan Burnet's father could be left behind to haunt the square
rooms of the London house. And there she would live, horticultural,
bookish, whimsical, witty, defiant, happily careless.

And it was this particular conception of evasion that had set her
careering about the countryside in her car, looking for conceivable
houses of refuge from this dark novelty of social and personal care, and
that had driven her into the low long room of Black Strand and the
presence of Mr. Brumley.

Of what ensued and the appearance and influence of Lady Beach-Mandarin
and how it led among other things to a lunch invitation from that lady
the reader has already been informed.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

THE ADVENTUROUS AFTERNOON

Sec.1

You will perhaps remember that before I fell into this extensive
digression about Lady Harman's upbringing, we had got to the entry of
Mrs. Sawbridge into the house bearing a plunder of Sir Isaac's best
roses. She interrupted a conversation of some importance. Those roses at
this point are still unwithered and fragrant, and moreover they are
arranged according to Mrs. Sawbridge's ideas of elegance about Sir
Isaac's home.... And Sir Isaac, when that conversation could be renewed,
categorically forbade Lady Harman to go to Lady Beach-Mandarin's lunch
and Lady Harman went to Lady Beach-Mandarin's lunch.

She had some peculiar difficulties in getting to that lunch.

It is necessary to tell certain particulars. They are particulars that
will distress the delicacy of Mrs. Sawbridge unspeakably if ever she
chances to read this book. But a story has to be told. You see Sir Isaac
Harman had never considered it advisable to give his wife a private
allowance. Whatever she wished to have, he maintained, she could have.
The bill would afterwards be paid by his cheque on the first day of the
month following the receipt of the bill. He found a generous pleasure in
writing these cheques, and Lady Harman was magnificently housed, fed and
adorned. Moreover, whenever she chose to ask for money he gave her
money, usually double of what she demanded,--and often a kiss or so into
the bargain. But after he had forbidden her to go to Lady
Beach-Mandarin's so grave an estrangement ensued that she could not ask
hi