Vivie, never having consciously been abroad before (though she
was later to learn she had actually been born in Brussels), began to
experience all the delights of travel in a foreign land. She woke up
the next morning to the country pleasures of Villa Beau-sejour, a
preposterous chateau-villa it might be, but attached to a charming
Flemish farm; with cows and pigs, geese and ducks, plump poultry and
white pigeons, with clumps of poplars and copses of hawthorns and
wild cherry trees which joined the little domain on to the splendid
forest of Tervueren. There were the friendly, super-intelligent big
dogs, like bastard St. Bernards or mastiffs in breed, that drew the
little carts which carried the produce of the farm to the markets
or to Brussels. There were cheery Flemish farm servants and buxom
dairy or poultry women, their wives; none of them particularly aware
that there was anything discreditable about Madame Varennes. They
may have vaguely remembered she had once lived under High
protection, but that, if anything, added to her prestige in their
eyes. She was an English lady who for purposes of business and may
be of _la haute politique_ chose to live in Belgium. She was a kind
mistress and a generous _patronne_. Vivie as her daughter was
assured of their respect, and by her polite behaviour won their
liking as well.

"You know, Viv, old girl," said Mrs. Warren one day, "if you played
your cards all right, this pretty place might be yours after I'd
gone. Why don't yer pick up a decent husband somewhere and drop all
this foolishness about the Suffragettes? He needn't know too much
about me, d'yer see? And if you looked at things sensible-like,
you'd come in for a pot of money some day; and whilst I lived I'd
make you a good allowance--"

"It's no use, dear mother"--involuntarily she said "dear": her
heart was hungry for affection, Wales was rapidly passing out of her
sphere, David's business must soon be wound up in that quarter and
where else had she to go? "So long as you keep on with those Hotels
I can't touch a penny. I oughtn't to have kept that thousand, only
Praddy assured me it was 'clean' money."

_Mrs. W._: "So it was. I won it at Monte. I don't often gamble now,
I hate losing money. But we'd had a splendid season at Roquebrune
and I sat down one day at the tables, a bit reckless-like. Seemed as
if I couldn't lose. When I got up and left I had won Thirty thousand
francs. So I says to myself: 'This shall