y.
She had a voice, which did not amount to much, and she had done a
little acting on the stage and for the screen, but without conspicuous
success. She had devoted years to war-work, and there were tears in
her beautiful eyes when she spoke of her husband, killed in action.
She refrained from mentioning the fact that when he fell he had been in
the midst of divorce proceedings against her, nor was she explicit as
to the nature of her war-work, though there were those, Roger among the
number, who assumed that it must have paid pretty well. At any rate,
the Baron took an interest in her referring to her as his ward--a
sufficiently elastic term. Finding Sir Charles attracted, he took him
aside and besought him to do something for Therese. Exactly what the
Baron had in mind may have been shadowy; but what Sir Charles did was
definite. He married her.

This action was as much a bombshell to the Baron as it was to the
neighbours in Cheshire, perhaps even more than Therese herself had
bargained for. It was a piece of amazing good fortune, but it entailed
restrictions which soon grew tedious. Country life in the North
Midlands proved a crushing bore. Tennis she cared little for once she
had finished dressing for the part, and hunting she gave up after her
third venture, when a fall strained a ligament in her back and laid her
up for weeks. Altogether she loathed England and the English more
every day. London she could have borne, but this life of the rural
provinces spelled extinction, beginning with the climate and ending
with the vicar for tea. At last she could not even be amused by the
sensation she was causing, and, casting about for something to mitigate
her boredom, she hit upon Roger as a possible distraction.

Roger, for his part, had seen trouble in the offing, though he was
unprepared for it to take this form. He did not dislike the young
woman, half French, half Belgian, with the qualities of both races,
though secretly he thought his father a fool to have offered her
marriage when something less permanent would have served the purpose.
Still, for all his private convictions, he behaved to his stepmother
with perfect courtesy, determined to make the best of things.

While Therese was recovering from her accident, Roger sat with her
nearly every evening. His father went off to bed at ten o'clock, while
Therese found herself with several hours on her hands. It was during
this period that Roger became