n;
some are but the broken beginnings of what are not so much years as
stretches of meteorological indecision. This particular spring was
essentially a south-westerly spring, good and friendly, showery but in
the lightest way and so softly reassuring as to be gently hilarious. It
was a spring to get into the blood of anyone; it gave Lady Harman the
feeling that Mrs. Pembrose would certainly be dealt with properly and
without unreasonable delay by Heaven, and that meanwhile it was well to
take the good things of existence as cheerfully as possible. The good
things she took were very innocent things. Feeling unusually well and
enjoying great draughts of spring air and sunshine were the chief. And
she took them only for three brief days. She carried the children down
to Black Strand to see her daffodils, and her daffodils surpassed
expectation. There was a delirium of blackthorn in the new wild garden
she had annexed from the woods and a close carpet of encouraged wild
primroses. Even the Putney garden was full of happy surprises. The
afternoon following her visit to Black Strand was so warm that she had
tea with her family in great gaiety on the lawn under the cedar. Her
offspring were unusually sweet that day, they had new blue cotton
sunbonnets, and Baby and Annette at least succeeded in being pretty. And
Millicent, under the new Swiss governess, had acquired, it seemed quite
suddenly, a glib colloquial French that somehow reconciled one to the
extreme thinness and shapelessness of her legs.

Then an amazing new fact broke into this gleam of irrational
contentment, a shattering new fact. She found she was being watched. She
discovered that dingy man in the grey suit following her.

The thing came upon her one afternoon. She was starting out for a talk
with Georgina. She felt so well, so confident of the world that it was
intolerable to think of Georgina harbouring resentment; she resolved she
would go and have things out with her and make it clear just how
impossible it was to impose a Director-General upon her husband. She
became aware of the man in grey as she walked down Putney Hill.

She recognized him at once. He was at the corner of Redfern Road and
still unaware of her existence. He was leaning against the wall with the
habituated pose of one who is frequently obliged to lean against walls
for long periods of time, and he was conversing in an elucidatory manner
with the elderly crossing-sweeper who still braves