shining
saucepans.

Roger knelt on the floor and examined the knobs and dial. Then,
raising his head, he sniffed the air, his nostrils detecting an elusive
fragrance, exotic, vaguely familiar.

"There seems a good deal of scent about here," he remarked. "It isn't
yours, is it?"

Somehow she didn't look as if she would use that particular perfume, or
indeed any perfume, while in working clothes. She laughed and shook
her head.

"Oh, no, it's not mine. It's Lady Clifford's. I could tell it
anywhere now."

"I can't see where it comes from."

"I'll tell you. When I arrived I found one of her handkerchiefs on the
floor behind the refrigerator. You wouldn't think an odour could be so
lasting, would you?"

He busied himself with the combination.

"I suppose she had been in here seeing about the milk. My aunt says
she used to look after that matter before my father was taken ill."

"Who, Lady Clifford? Did she?"

He did not look up, and so missed the brief, faintly puzzled expression
that flitted over her face as she stopped in the doorway with a vase of
tulips in her hands.

As it happened, she was wondering over this fresh instance of Lady
Clifford's solicitude for her husband's welfare, and trying to make it
fit in with the idea that had come to her on the previous day. More
than ever the Frenchwoman appeared to her a mass of contradictions; try
as she would she felt she could never fathom her....

A moment later Roger brought a narrow folded document and handed it to
his father.

"Is this it?"

"Yes, quite right. Lay it here on the bed beside me. I'll run over it
presently. I suppose you'll be off somewhere now?"

"I thought of running down to the tennis-courts on the chance of
getting a few sets. I'll not be back for lunch."

"Know anyone to play with?"

"Yes; I ran into Graham and Marjory Kent at the Casino yesterday. They
said they'd bring a fourth."

"Well, make the most of your holiday. You've earned it."

It was high praise. In this one simple sentence the old fellow, hard,
undemonstrative, more than a bit "Lancashire," expressed the utmost
approval of which he was capable. Understanding what it meant, Roger
glowed with appreciation, yet he contented himself with a bare
"Thanks," because anything more would have caused his father acute
embarrassment.

Esther, who had been in the room, now withdrew in quest of more
flowers. When she was out of earshot the invalid spoke,