a lame jackdaw. She had many such
pensioners, alike in a community of misfortune. "And, yes,
Berns, you're right, we flirted a little--only a little: wasn't
it natural? It was only for fun, because we were both young and
it was such heavenly weather--it was the Easter before war broke
out. No, he didn't ask me to marry him! Nothing was farther
from his mind."

"Did he kiss you?"

Laura slowly and smilingly shook her head. "Am I, Yvonne?"

"But you liked the fellow?"

"Oh yes, he was charming. A little too much one of a class,
perhaps: there's a strong family likeness, isn't there, between
Cambridge undergraduates? But he was more cultivated than a good
many of his class. We used to go up the river together and read
--what did one read in the spring of 1914? Masefield, I suppose,
or was it Maeterlinck? Rupert Brooks came with the war. Imagine
reading 'Pelleas et Melisande' in a Canadian canoe! It makes one
want to be twenty-two again, so young and so delightfully
serious." It was hard to run on while the glow faded out of
Bernard's face and a cold gloom again came over it, but sad
experience had taught Laura that at all costs, under whatever
temptation, it was wiser to be frank. It would have been easier
for the moment to paint the boy and girl friendship in neutral
tints, but if its details came out later, trivial and innocent
as they were, the economy of today would cost her dear tomorrow,
Her own impression was that Clowes had never been jealous of her
in his life. But the pretence of jealousy was one of his few
diversions.

"I dare say you do wish you were twenty-two again," he said,
delicately setting down his tea cup on the tray--all his
movements, so far as he could control them, were delicate and
fastidious. "I dare say you would like a chance to play your
cards differently. Can't be done, my, girl, but what a good
fellow I am to ask Lawrence to Wanhope, ain't I? No one can say
I'm not an obliging husband. Lawrence isn't a jumping doll. He's
six and thirty and as strong as a horse. You'll have no end of a
good time knitting up your severed friendship .. 'Pon my word,
I've a good mind to put him off. . I shouldn't care to fall foul
of the King's Proctor."

"Will you have another cup of tea before I ring"

"No, thanks . . . Do I lead you the deuce of a life, Lally?"

"You do now and then," said his wife, smiling with pale lips.

"It isn't that I'm sensitive for myself, because I know