as Barry, his male nurse, had left them twenty minutes ago: a
big, powerful man, well over six feet in height, permanently
bronze and darkly handsome, his immense shoulders still held back
so flat that his coat fitted without a wrinkle--but a cripple
since the war.

Laura Clowes too was tall and slightly sunburnt, but thin for
her height, and rather plain except for her sweet eyes, her silky
brown hair, and--rarer gift!--the vague elegance which was a
prerogative of Selincourt women. She rarely wore expensive
clothes, her maid Catherine made most of her indoor dresses,
and yet she could still hold her own, as in old days, among
women who shopped in the Rue de la Paix. This afternoon, in her
silk muslin of the same shade as the trail of wistaria tucked
in where the frills crossed over her breast, she might have gone
astray out of the seventeenth century.

"Tea is in the parlour," said Mrs. Clowes. "Shall I wheel you
round through the garden? It's a lovely day and the roses are
in their perfection, I counted eighty blooms on the old Frau
Karl. I should like you to see her."

"I shouldn't. But you can drag me into the parlour if you like,"
said Bernard Clowes--a grudging concession: more often than not
he ate his food in the hall. His wife pushed his couch, which
ran on cycle wheels and so lightly that a child could propel it,
into her sitting-room and as near as she dared to the French
windows that opened without step or ledge on the terrace
flagstones and the verdure of the lawn. Out of doors, for some
obscure reason, he refused to go, though the garden was sweet
with the scent of clover and the gold sunlight was screened by
the milky branches of a great acacia. Still he was in the fresh
air, and Laura hastily busied herself with her flowered Dresden
teacups, pretending unconsciousness because if she had shown the
slightest satisfaction he would probably have demanded to be
taken back. Her mild duplicity was of course mere make believe:
the two understood each other only too well: but it was wiser to
keep a veil drawn in case Bernard Clowes should suddenly return
to his senses. For this reason Laura always spoke as if his
choice of a coffined life were only a day or two old. Had he
said--as he might say at any moment--"Laura, I should like to
go for a drive," Laura would have been able without inconsistency
to reply, "Yes, dear: what time shall I order the car?" as though
they had been driving together