e afraid of her than
of him. Besides, they had only another week, and they didn't want, did
they, to see _too_ much of Mrs. Tailleur? At that Lucy got very red, and
promised his sister to take her out somewhere by themselves the next
fine day.

That was on Wednesday evening, when it was raining hard.

The weather lifted with the dawn. The heavy smell of the wet earth was
pierced by the fine air of heaven and the sea.

Jane Lucy leaned out of her bedroom window and looked eastward beyond
the hotel garden to the Cliff. The sea was full of light. Light rolled
on the low waves and broke on their tops like foam. It hung quivering on
the white face of the Cliff. It was like a thin spray thrown from the
heaving light of the sea.

At breakfast Jane reminded Robert of his promise to take her for a sail
on the first fine day. They turned their backs on the hotel and went
seaward. On their way to the boats they passed Mrs. Tailleur sitting on
the beach in the sun.

Neither of them enjoyed that expedition. It was the first of all the
things they had done together that had failed. Jane wondered why. If
they were not enjoying themselves on a day like that, when, she argued,
would they enjoy themselves? The day remained as perfect as it had
begun. There was nothing wrong, Robert admitted, with the day. They
sailed in the sun's path and landed in a divine and solitary cove.
Robert was obliged to agree that there was nothing wrong with the cove,
and nothing, no nothing in the least wrong with the lunch. There might,
yes, of course there might, be something very wrong with him.

Whatever it was, it disappeared as they sighted Southbourne. Robert,
mounting with uneasy haste the steps that led from the beach to the
hotel garden, was unusually gay.

They were late for dinner, and the table next theirs was empty. Outside,
on the great green lawn in front of the windows, he could see Mrs.
Tailleur walking up and down, alone.

He dined with the abstraction of a man pursued by the hour of an
appointment. He established Jane in the lounge, with all the magazines
he could lay his hands on, and went out by the veranda on to the lawn
where Mrs. Tailleur was still walking up and down.

The Colonel and his wife were in the veranda. They made a low sound of
pity as they saw him go.

Mrs. Tailleur seemed more than ever alone. The green space was bare
around her as if cleared by the sweep of her gown. She moved quietly,
with a long and even