en in June but still an
effective screen. He had not found himself alone with Isabel for
ten days. Since Val was with Laura, Lawrence drew the rather
cynical conclusion that he could count on a breathing space, and
he wondered if Isabel too were glad of it. She was in a brown
cotton dress, her right sleeve still tucked up high on her bare
arm: a rounded slender arm not much tanned even at the wrist, for
her skin was almost impervious to sunburn. Above the elbow it
was milk-white with a faint bloom on it, in texture not like
ivory, which is a dead, cold, and polished material, but like a
flower petal, one of those flowers that have a downy sheen on
them, white hyacinths or tall lilies. Lawrence fixed his eyes on
it unconsciously but so steadily that Isabel became aware of his
admiration. She blushed and was going to pull down her sleeve,
but checked herself, and turning a little away, so that she could
pretend not to know that he was looking at her, raised her arm to
smooth her hair, lifting it and pushing a loosened hairpin into
place. After all . . . This was Isabel's first venture into
coquetry. But it was half unconscious.

"Why can't you? oh, I suppose people would be silly. Major
Clowes himself is silly enough for anything. Oh, I'm so sorry,
I always forget he's your cousin! Is that why you want me to
go?"

"No."

She laughed. "Never mind, you'll soon find some one else. What
play is it?"

"'She Promised to Marry.'"

"Oh ah, yes: that's by Moore, who wrote 'The Milkmaid' and
'Sheddon, M.P.' I've read some of his things. I liked them so, I
made Rowsley give me them for my last birthday. They're quite
cheap in brown paper. O! dear, I should love to see one of them
on the stage!" Isabel gave a great sigh. "A London stage too!
I've never been to a theatre except in Salisbury. And Hadow's is
the one to go to, isn't it? Where they play the clever plays
that aren't tiresome. Who's acting tonight?"

"Madeleine Wild and Peter Sennet."

"Have you ever seen them?"

Lawrence laughed outright. "I was at their wedding. Madeleine
is half French: I knew her first when she was singing in a cafe
chantant on the Champs Elysees. She is dark and pretty and Peter
is fair and pretty, and Peter is the deadliest poker player that
ever scored off an American train crook."

"Oh," said Isabel with a second sigh that nearly blew her away,
"how I should love to know actors and actresses and people who
play po