acknowledged. To both it seemed the most
wonderful, the most absorbing of conversations. They were blissfully
unconscious that it was old as the hills themselves, and had been
repeated with ceaseless reiteration from prehistoric periods. Only once
was there an interruption of the deep mutual happiness and that came
without warning. Claire was smiling in blissful contentment,
unconscious of a care, when suddenly a knife-like pain stabbed her
heart. Imagination had wafted her back to Staff-Room. She saw the
faces of the fifteen women seated around the table, women who were with
but one exception past their youth, approaching nearer and nearer to
dreaded age, and an inward voice whispered that to each in her turn had
come this golden hour, the hour of dreams, of sweet, illuminative hope.
The hour had come, and the hour had passed, leaving behind nothing but a
memory and a regret. Why should she herself be more blessed than
others? She looked forward and saw a vision of herself ten years hence
still hurrying along the well-known street looking up at the clock in
the church tower to assure herself that she was in time, still mounting
the same bare staircase, still hanging up her hat on the same peg. The
prose of it in contradistinction with the poetry of the present was
terrifying to Claire's youthful mind, and her look was so white, so
strained, that Erskine took instant alarm.

"What is it? What is it? Are you ill? Have I said anything to upset
you? I say, what _is_ the matter!"

"Nothing. Nothing! I had a--thought! Talk hard, please, and make me
forget!"

The end of the two hours found the cross-questioning still in full
force; the man and the girl alike still feeling that the half was not
yet told. They resented the quick passage of time, resented the
disturbance of the afternoon hours.

"What on earth do we want with a tennis party?" grumbled the Captain.
"Wish to goodness we could be left alone. I suppose the mater wanted
them to amuse you before I came back."

Claire murmured incoherently. She knew better, but she was not going to
say so! They turned unwillingly towards the house.

In the afternoon the guests arrived. They came early, for the Fanshawe
tennis courts were in fine condition, and the prospect of meeting a new
man and a new girl, plus the son of the house, was a treat in itself in
the quiet countryside where the members of the same set met regularly at
every function of the year