hed. "He never had me to give up, really. Besides, I hardly
knew you then, Billy, so it didn't count, did it?... Billy, you must not
behave in that ridiculous way; you have crushed my flowers, and the gong
will go in a moment."

It was a fortnight since Jimmy had met Ethel Grimmer again, and during
that time he had not written a line. Every day, and often twice a day,
he had been up at Drylands, at first, because Ethel had insisted on his
attendance; and latterly, because it seemed the natural thing to do. His
original feeling had been one of sincere relief at the break in the
monotony of his exile, and he had been equally glad to see both Vera and
Ethel; but after a while Ethel seemed to become almost uninteresting by
comparison with the younger woman. He was not passionately in love, as
he had been with Lalage. The thought of Vera gave him no sleepless
nights. In fact, now he slept far better than he had done for many
months past. He had a sense of restfulness to which he had long been a
stranger, as though he had taken some mental opiate to soothe the pain
of remembrance. London, and the flat, and the grinding drudgery of Fleet
Street, the miserable little creditors worrying at the door--all these
seemed now to belong to some former existence, to be part of the life of
a different Jimmy Grierson. Vera knew nothing of such things; and, in
her society, he himself managed to forget them.

Lalage's letter was still unanswered. Day after day he meant to write;
but, somehow, there was never time. He wanted to think it over
carefully, he kept on telling himself, and then deliberately turned his
mind to something else.

He had smartened himself up considerably so far as appearance went.
True, once or twice, it gave him a twinge of remorse when he found that
he was doing again the very things on which Lalage had insisted with
gentle patience in those now-distant days, observing little conventions
which he had dropped during his sojourn abroad, and had lately dropped
anew. Then, too, he was drinking far less. He did not need the spirit
now to bring him oblivion, and he did want to keep his hand steady and
his eye clear. Vera had once spoken very strongly on the subject of
intemperance, which she knew only in theory; and Jimmy had listened to
her words with respectful contrition. She would never forgive a man who
drank, she said, and he had gone a little cold at the thought. Yet,
forgetting that Lalage had known of his failin