up a fresh
sprig fragrant with its pale horns, which she had tracked to
covert by its scent. Lawrence was not given to wearing
buttonholes, but he understood the friendly and apologetic
intention and inclined his broad shoulder for Miss Stafford to
pass the stem through the lapel of his coat. Isabel had not
intended to pin it in for him, but she was generally willing to
do what was expected of her. She took a pin from her own dress
(there were plenty in it), and fastened the flower deftly on the
breast of Captain Hyde's white jacket.

And so standing before him, her head bent over her task, she
unwittingly left Lawrence free to observe the texture of her
skin, bloomed over with down like a peach, and the curves of her
young shoulders, a little inclined to stoop, as young backs often
are in the strain of growth, but so firm, so fresh, so white
under the thin stuff of her bodice: below her silken plaits, on
the nape of her neck, a curl or two of hair grew in close rings,
so fine that it was almost indistinguishable from its own shadow.
Swiftly, without warning, Lawrence was aware of a pleasurable
commotion in his veins, a thrill that shook through him like a
burst of gay music. This experience was not novel, he had felt
it three or four times before in his life, and on the spot, while
it was sending gentle electric currents to his finger-tips, he
was able to analyse its origin--item, to warm weather and
laziness after the strain of his Chinese journey, so much: item,
to Isabel's promise of beauty, so much: item, to the disparity
between her age and his own, to her ignorance and immaturity, the
bloom on the untouched fruit, so much more. But there was this
difference between the present and previous occasions when he had
fallen or thought of falling in love, that he desired no victory:
no, it was he and not Isabel who was to capitulate, leaning his
forehead upon her young hand. . . . And he had never seen her
till that morning, and the child was nineteen, the daughter of a
country vicarage, brought up to wear calico and to say her
prayers! more, she was Val Stafford's sister, and she loved her
brother. Lawrence gave himself a gentle shake. At six and
thirty it is time to put away childish things. "Thank you very
much. Is that Mrs. Clowes calling us?"

It was Laura Clowes and Yvonne Bendish, and Lawrence, as he
strolled back with Isabel to the garden gate, had an uneasy
suspicion that the episode of the hon