.

"I have no sympathy with him," said Bertha, who seemed for her quite
hard. "If he does like me, all the more he ought to have kept away.
Besides, it's only because he wants to be amused! What right has he to
make his wife unhappy, when he deliberately chose her, and to be
willing--if he is willing--to smash up my happiness with Percy?"

"Of course that's horrid of him," said Madeline; "but somehow I do think
his wife is rather awful; I think she might do anything. But won't you
answer his letter?"

"Yes; I think I'd better write him a line," said Bertha.

She sat down and wrote:

"DEAR MR. HILLIER,--Pray don't think again of the unpleasant
little incident.

"I have already forgotten it.

"I think that if you will make your children the interest of
your life--though it's very impertinent of me to say
so--happiness must come of it.

"Good-bye. Yours very sincerely,

"BERTHA KELLYNCH"

"I've written," said Bertha, "what I wouldn't mind either Percy or Mary
seeing."

"I'm sure you have, dear. But Percy would rather you didn't write at
all."

"Perhaps. But I think it's right. Besides, otherwise, he might write
again, or even call."

"Yes, that's true."

CHAPTER XXIV

LADY KELLYNCH AT HOME

Although Lady Kellynch was a widow, and had had two sons (at the unusual
interval of eighteen years), there was something curiously old-maidish
about her--I should say that she had a set of qualities that were
formerly known by that expression, as there are no such things nowadays
as old maids and maiden aunts as contrasted to British matrons. There
are merely married or unmarried women. And Lady Kellynch belonged to a
long-forgotten type; she was no suffragette; politics did not touch her,
and at fifty-four she did not regard herself as the modern middle-aged
woman does. It never occurred to her for a moment, for example, to have
lessons in the Tango or to learn ski-ing or any other winter sports, in
a white jersey and cap. She was not seen clinging to the arm of a
professor of roller-skating, nor did she go to fancy-dress balls as
Folly or Romeo, as a Pierrette or Joan of Arc, as many of her
contemporaries loved to do. She dressed magnificently and in the fashion
of the day, and yet she always remained and looked extremely
old-fashioned; and though she would wear her hats as they were made
nowadays, her hair then had a look that did not go with it; no
hairdresser or m