t offer to look at the gift, which was the traditional
Jardine gift to travellers, a custom descending from Great-aunt Alison.
He stood a bit away and said, "All right."

And Jean understood, and said nothing of what was in her heart.

CHAPTER II

"They have their exits and their entrances."
_As You Like It_.

The ten o'clock express from Euston to Scotland was tearing along on its
daily journey. It was that barren hour in the afternoon when luncheon is
over and forgotten, and tea is yet far distant, and most of the
passengers were either asleep or listlessly trying to read light
literature.

Alone in a first-class carriage sat Bella Bathgate's lodger--Miss Pamela
Reston. A dressing-bag and a fur-coat and a pile of books and magazines
lay on the opposite seat, and the lodger sat writing busily. An envelope
lay beside her addressed to

THE LORD BIDBOROUGH,
c/o KING, KING, & Co.,
BOMBAY.

The letter ran:

"DEAR BIDDY,--We have always agreed, you and I (forgive the abruptness
of this beginning), that we would each live our own life. Your idea of
living was to range over the world in search of sport, mine to amuse
myself well, to shine, to be admired. You, I imagine from your letters
(what a faithful correspondent you have been, Biddy, all your wandering
life), are still finding zest in it: mine has palled. You will jump
naturally to the brotherly conclusion that _I_ have palled--that I cease
to amuse, that I find myself taking a second or even a third place, I
who was always first; that, in short, I am a soured and disappointed
woman.

"Honestly, I don't think that is so. I am still beautiful: I am more
sympathetic than in my somewhat callous youth, therefore more popular: I
am good company: I have the influence that money carries with it, and I
could even now make what is known as a 'brilliant' marriage. Did you
ever wonder--everybody else did, I know--why I never married? Simply, my
dear, because the only man I cared for didn't ask me ... and now I am
forty. (How stark and almost indecent it looks written down like that!)
At forty, one is supposed to have got over all youthful fancies and
disappointments, and lately it has seemed to me reasonable to
contemplate a common-sense marriage. A politician, wise, honoured,
powerful--and sixty. What could be more suitable? So suitable that I ran
away--an absurdly young thing to do at forty--and I am writing to you in
the train on my way to Scotl