fe-history
of the sole servant, a very young agreeable woman with a wedding-ring
and a baby, which baby she carried about with her when serving at
table. Her husband was in France. She said that as soon as she had
received his permission to do so she should leave, as she really could
not get through all the work of the hotel and mind and feed a baby.
She said also that she played the piano herself. And she regretted
that baby and pressure of work had deprived her of a sight of the
Russian dancers, because she had heard so much about them, and was
sure they were beautiful. This detail touched G.J.'s heart to a
mysterious and sweet and almost intolerable melancholy. He had not
made the acquaintance of fellow-guests--for there were none, save
Concepcion and Emily.

And in the evening as in the morning the weir placidly murmured, and
the river slipped smoothly between the huge jutting buttresses of the
Old Bridge; and the thought of the perpetuity of the river, in whose
mirror the venerable town was a mushroom, obsessed him, mastered
him, and made him as old as the river. He was wonder-struck
and sorrow-struck by life, and by his own life, and by the
incomprehensible and angering fantasy of Concepcion. His week-end took
on the appearance of the monstrous. Then the door opened again, and
Concepcion entered in a white gown, the antithesis of her sporting
costume of the day before. She approached through the thickening
shadows of the room, and the vague whiteness of her gown reminded him
of the whiteness of the form climbing the chimney-ladder on the roof
of Lechford House in the raid. Knowing her, he ought to have known
that, having made him believe that she would not come down, she
would certainly come down. He restrained himself, showed no untoward
emotion, and said in a calm, genial voice: "Oh! I'm so glad you were
well enough to come down."

She sat opposite to him in the window-seat, rather sideways, so that
her skirt was pulled close round her left thigh and flowed free over
the right. He could see her still plainly in the dusk.

"I've never yet apologised to you for my style of behaviour at the
committee of yours," she began abruptly in a soft, kind, reasonable
voice. "I know I let you down horribly. Yes, yes! I did. And I ought
to apologise to you for to-day too. But I don't think I'll apologise
to you for bringing you to Wrikton and this place. They're not real,
you know. They're an illusion. There is no such pla