d dryly to G.J.:

"I can't eat any more. I think I ought to run along to Debenham and
Freebody's at once. You might come too, and be sure to bring your good
taste with you."

He was alarmed by her tone.

"Debenham and Freebody's! What for?"

"To order mourning, of course. To have it ready, you know. A
precaution, you know." She laughed.

He saw that she was becoming hysterical: the special liability of
the war-bride for whom the curtain has been lifted and falls
exasperatingly, enragingly, too soon.

"You think I'm a bit hysterical?" she questioned, half menacingly, and
stood up.

"I think you'd better sit down, to begin with," he said firmly.

The parlour-maid, blushing slightly, left the room.

"Oh, all right!" Concepcion agreed carelessly, and sat down. "But you
may as well read that."

She drew a telegram from the low neck of her gown and carefully
unfolded it and placed it in front of him. It was a War Office
telegram announcing that Carlos had been killed.

"It came ten minutes before you," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me at once?" he murmured, frightfully shocked. He
was actually reproaching her!

She stood up again. She lived; her breast rose and fell. Her gown had
the same voluptuousness. Her temperament was still emanating the same
aura. She was the same new Concepcion, strange and yet profoundly
known to him. But ineffable tragedy had marked her down, and the sight
of her parched the throat.

She said:

"Couldn't. Besides, I had to see if I could stand it. Because I've got
to stand it, G.J.... And, moreover, in our set it's a sacred duty to
be original."

She snatched the telegram, tore it in two, and pushed the pieces back
into her gown.

"'Poor wounded name!'" she murmured, "'my bosom as a bed shall lodge
thee.'"

The next moment she fell to the floor, at full length on her back.
G.J. sprang to her, kneeling on her rich, outspread gown, and tried to
lift her.

"No, no!" she protested faintly, dreamily, with a feeble frown on her
pale forehead. "Let me lie. Equilibrium has been established on the
Western Front."

This was her greatest _mot_.

Chapter 12

RENDEZVOUS

When the Italian woman, having recognised him with a discreet smile,
introduced G.J. into the drawing-room of the Cork Street flat, he saw
Christine lying on the sofa by the fire. She too was in a tea-gown.

She said:

"Do not be vexed. I have my migraine--am good for nothing. But I gave
the order