rather suspected that he had just drawn a
valuable card.

"Thank you," he said gravely, when she had finished. "You have done a
lot to bridge the gulf that lies--I am sure you have noticed it--between
the people who saw service in this war and those who stayed at home."

Suddenly Lily saw that the gulf between her family and herself was just
that, which was what he had intended.

When Elinor came in they were absorbed in conversation, Lily flushed and
eager, and her husband smiling, urbane, and genial.

To Lily, Elinor Doyle had been for years a figure of mystery. She had
not seen her for many years, and she had, remembered a thin, girlish
figure, tragic-eyed, which eternally stood by a window in her room,
looking out. But here was a matronly woman, her face framed with soft,
dark hair, with eyes like her father's, with Howard Cardew's ease of
manner, too, but with a strange passivity, either of repression or of
fires early burned out and never renewed.

Lily was vaguely disappointed. Aunt Elinor, in soft gray silk, matronly,
assured, unenthusiastically pleased to see her; Doyle himself, cheerful
and suave; the neat servant; the fire lit, comfortable room,--there was
no drama in all that, no hint of mystery or tragedy. All the hatred at
home for an impulsive assault of years ago, and--this!

"Lily, dear!" Elinor said, and kissed her. "Why, Lily, you are a woman!"

"I am twenty, Aunt Elinor."

"Yes, of course. I keep forgetting. I live so quietly here that the days
go by faster than I know." She put Lily back in her chair, and glanced
at her husband.

"Is Louis coming to dinner, Jim?"

"Yes."

"I suppose you cannot stay, Lily?"

"I ought to tell you, Aunt Elinor. Only mother knows that I am here."

Aunt Elinor smiled her quiet smile.

"I understand, dear. How are they all?"

"Grandfather is very well. Father looks tired. There is some trouble at
the mill, I think."

Elinor glanced at Doyle, but he said nothing.

"And your mother?"

"She is well."

Lily was commencing to have an odd conviction, which was that her Aunt
Elinor was less glad to have her there than was Jim Doyle. He seemed
inclined to make up for Elinor's lack of enthusiasm by his own. He built
up a larger fire, and moved her chair near it.

"Weather's raw," he said. "Sure you are comfortable now? And why not
have dinner here? We have an interesting man coming, and we don't often
have the chance to offer our guests a charming young l