ew up suddenly. One can't be all over a big business
everywhere all at once, more particularly if one is worried about other
things. As soon as I had time to look into it I put things right. There
was misunderstandings on both sides."

He glanced up again at Lady Harman. (She was standing behind Mr. Brumley
so that he could not see her but--did their eyes meet?)

"As soon as we are back from Marienbad," Sir Isaac volunteered, "Lady
Harman and I are going into all that business thoroughly."

Mr. Brumley concealed his intense aversion for this association under a
tone of intelligent interest. "Into--I don't quite understand--what
business?"

"Women employees in London--Hostels--all that kind of thing. Bit more
sensible than suffragetting, eh, Elly?"

"Very interesting," said Mr. Brumley with a hollow cordiality, "very."

"Done on business lines, mind you," said Sir Isaac, looking suddenly
very sharp and keen, "done on proper business lines, there's no end of a
change possible. And it's a perfectly legitimate outgrowth from such
popular catering as ours. It interests me."

He made a little whistling noise with his teeth at the end of this
speech.

"I didn't know Lady Harman was disposed to take up such things," he
said. "Or I'd have gone into them before."

"He's going into them now," said Mrs. Harman, "heart and soul. Why! we
have to take his temperature over it, to see he doesn't work himself up
into a fever." Her manner became reasonable and confidential. She spoke
to Mr. Brumley as if her son was slightly deaf. "It's better than his
fretting," she said....

Sec.8

Mr. Brumley returned to London in a state of extreme mental and
emotional unrest. The sight of Lady Harman had restored all his passion
for her, the all too manifest fact that she was receding beyond his
reach stirred him with unavailing impulses towards some impossible
extremity of effort. She had filled his mind so much that he could not
endure the thought of living without hope of her. But what hope was
there of her? And he was jealous, detestably jealous, so jealous that in
that direction he did not dare to let his mind go. He sawed at the bit
and brought it back, or he would have had to writhe about the carriage.
His thoughts ran furiously all over the place to avoid that pit. And now
he found himself flashing at moments into wild and hopeless rebellion
against the institution of marriage, of which he had hitherto sought
always to be the