lder man urged again. "It's early
days yet, and you never know what will happen."

"I know what won't happen, though," said Forrester grimly.

He went back to the flat disconsolately. He heard Peg laughing as he let
himself in, and the silence that fell as soon as his steps sounded in
the passage.

The two girls were together in the sitting-room with which Faith had
been so delighted when she first visited it, but it was Peg who greeted
him as he entered.

She had made herself quite at home, and, in spite of a certain bluntness
and vulgarity of which she would never rid herself as long as she lived,
she seemed to have improved.

She was dressed more quietly and her hair was neater, but she still wore
the gipsy earrings which Forrester hated so much.

She had been living in the flat a fortnight then--a year it seemed to
Forrester. And he wondered, as he looked at his wife, why it was that,
with each day, the gulf between them seemed to widen.

He smiled rather pathetically as her eyes met his.

"I've been thinking," he said. "What about a run down to see the twins?
I'll take you in the car."

Twenty times a day he made up his mind that he would start all over
again to win Faith back to him, but though she was friendly up to a
certain point, he could never get beyond that point, or even back to the
footing which had promised so happily for the future during the first
days of their acquaintance.

Her face brightened wonderfully now at the suggestion and she clasped
her hands eagerly.

"Oh, will you? How lovely!"

"We'll go directly after lunch," Forrester said, and looked at Peg.
"Will you come, Miss Fraser?"

Peg shrugged her shoulders.

"You don't want me," she said. "Two's company, and three's a crowd.
I've got a story to finish, too."

"Another novelette?" Forrester asked, cynically. Most of the rooms in
the flat were littered with Peg's paper-backed library, and he hated the
sight of them. He had made such different plans for his future. He had
meant to introduce Faith to his own friends and gradually initiate her
into their mode of living, but so far there had been no opportunity. Peg
ruled the flat serenely, and, though she certainly never suggested
bringing her own relations or acquaintances there, her mere presence
prevented Forrester from doing as he wished.

"I'd much rather you came," Faith said quickly, but Peg only laughed.

"Then I'm not coming, so there's an end of it!"

She stuck to