and once, when
Grandmother and I had gone to live in our own house, and I'd been
presented, June took me behind the scenes after a matinee at his
theatre. He was charming to me, and I loved him more than ever, with
that delicious, hopeless, agonizing love of seventeen.

People talked about June with Lorillard, but no more than with a dozen
other men. Nobody dreamed of their marrying, and none less than she
herself. As for him, though he was madly in love, he must have known
that as an eligible he'd have as much chance with a royal princess as
with Lady June Dana.

It was in this way that matters stood when the war broke out. And among
the first volunteers of note went Robert Lorillard. No doubt he would
have gone sooner or later in any case. But being taken up, thrown down,
smiled at, and frowned on by June was getting upon his nerves, as even I
could see, so war--fighting, and dying perhaps--must have been a welcome
counter-irritant.

The season was over, but Grandmother kept on the house she had taken, as
an _ouvroir_, where she mobilized a regiment of women for war work. It
was in the same square as Stane House, where the Duchess was mobilizing
a rival regiment. June and I worked under our different taskmistresses;
but I saw a good deal of her--and all that went on. The moment she heard
that Lorillard had offered himself, and was furiously training for a
commission, she was a changed girl. She was like a creature burning with
fever; but I thought her more beautiful than she'd ever been, with that
rose-flame in her cheeks and blue fire in her eyes.

One afternoon she got me off from work, asking me to shop with her. But
instead of going to Bond Street, we made straight for Robert Lorillard's
flat in St. James's Square. How he could have been there that day I
don't know, for he was in some training camp or other I suppose; but
she'd sent an urgent wire, no doubt, begging him to get a few hours'
leave.

Anyhow, there he _was_--waiting for us. I shall never forget his
face--though he forgot my existence! June forgot it also. I'd been
dragged at her chariot wheels (it was a taxi!) to play propriety; my
first appearance as a chaperon. I might as well have been a fly on the
wall for both of them!

Robert opened the door of the flat himself when we rang (servants were
superfluous for that interview!) and they looked at each other, those
two. Eyes drank eyes! Lorillard didn't seem to see me. I drifted vaguely
in after