now, Denis," she said, in a low, serious voice, gasping a
little as she spoke--"do you know that there's a woman here who has had
three children in thirty-one months?"

"Really," said Denis, making rapid mental calculations.

"It's appalling. I've been telling her about the Malthusian League. One
really ought..."

But a sudden violent renewal of the metallic yelling announced the fact
that somebody had won the race. Mary became once more the centre of a
dangerous vortex. It was time, Denis thought, to move on; he might be
asked to do something if he stayed too long.

He turned back towards the canvas village. The thought of tea was
making itself insistent in his mind. Tea, tea, tea. But the tea-tent was
horribly thronged. Anne, with an unusual expression of grimness on her
flushed face, was furiously working the handle of the urn; the brown
liquid spurted incessantly into the proffered cups. Portentous, in
the farther corner of the tent, Priscilla, in her royal toque, was
encouraging the villagers. In a momentary lull Denis could hear her
deep, jovial laughter and her manly voice. Clearly, he told himself,
this was no place for one who wanted tea. He stood irresolute at the
entrance to the tent. A beautiful thought suddenly came to him; if he
went back to the house, went unobtrusively, without being observed, if
he tiptoed into the dining-room and noiselessly opened the little doors
of the sideboard--ah, then! In the cool recess within he would find
bottles and a siphon; a bottle of crystal gin and a quart of soda water,
and then for the cups that inebriate as well as cheer...

A minute later he was walking briskly up the shady yew-tree walk. Within
the house it was deliciously quiet and cool. Carrying his well-filled
tumbler with care, he went into the library. There, the glass on the
corner of the table beside him, he settled into a chair with a volume of
Sainte-Beuve. There was nothing, he found, like a Causerie du Lundi for
settling and soothing the troubled spirits. That tenuous membrane of his
had been too rudely buffeted by the afternoon's emotions; it required a
rest.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Towards sunset the fair itself became quiescent. It was the hour for the
dancing to begin. At one side of the village of tents a space had been
roped off. Acetylene lamps, hung round it on posts, cast a piercing
white light. In one corner sat the band, and, obedient to its scraping
and blowing, two or three hundred dan