got
a nice English governess who helps her to look after 'em. A year or
two hence I hope to bring 'em over to see the old country and we may
have to put the eldest to school: children run wild so in South
Africa. As to Miss Warren, she's an old friend of mine and a very
dear one. I hadn't seen her for--for--thirteen years, when the sound
of her voice--She's got one of those voices you never forget--the
sound of her voice came up out of that beastly crowd of gladiators
yesterday, and I found her being hammered by two policemen. I pretty
well laid one out, though I hadn't used my fists for a matter of ten
years. Then I got knocked over myself, I passed a night in a police
cell feeling pretty sick and positively maddened at not being able
to ask any questions. Then at last morning came, I had a wash and
brush up--the police after all aren't bad chaps, and most of 'em
seemed jolly well ashamed of last night's doin's--Then I met Vivie
in Court and your husband too. He took me on trust and I'm awfully
grateful to him. I've got a dear old mater down in Kent--Margate,
don't you know--my dad's still alive, Vivie!--and she'd have been
awfully cut up at hearing her son had been spending the night in a
police cell and was goin' to be fined for rioting, only fortunately
the Home Secretary said we weren't to be punished.... But Professor
Rossiter's coming on the scene was a grand thing. Besides being an
M.P., I needn't tell _you_, Mrs. Rossiter, he has a world-wide
reputation. Oh, we read your books, sir, out in South Africa, _I_
can tell you--Well--er--and here we are--and I'm monopolizing the
conversation."

Vivie sat opposite her old lover, and near to the man who loved her
now with such ill-concealed passion that his hand trembled for her
very proximity. She felt strangely elated, strangely gay, at times
inclined to laugh as she caught sight of her bruised and puffy
face in an opposite mirror, yet happy in the knowledge that
notwithstanding the thirteen years of separation, her repeated
rejection of his early love, her battered appearance, Frank still
felt tenderly towards her, still remembered the timbre of her voice.
Her mouth was too sore and swollen to make eating very pleasant. She
trifled with her food but she felt young and full of gay adventure.
Mrs. Rossiter a little overwhelmed with all the information Gardner
had poured out, a little irritated also at the dancing light in
Vivie's eyes, turned her questionings on her.