ing from her seat, turned
her eyes to the clock. "But, as you say, it's getting late. Oughtn't we
to dress for dinner?"

Miss Suffern, at the suggestion, stood up also, an agitated hand
among her bugles. "I do wish I could persuade you to stay up here this
evening. I'm sure Leila'd be happier if you would. Really, you're much
too tired to come down."

"What nonsense, Susy!" Mrs. Lidcote spoke with a sudden sharpness, her
hand stretched to the bell. "When do we dine? At half-past eight? Then I
must really send you packing. At my age it takes time to dress."

Miss Suffern, thus projected toward the threshold, lingered there to
repeat: "Leila'll never forgive herself if you make an effort you're not
up to." But Mrs. Lidcote smiled on her without answering, and the icy
lightwave propelled her through the door.

V

Mrs. Lidcote, though she had made the gesture of ringing for her maid,
had not done so.

When the door closed, she continued to stand motionless in the middle
of her soft spacious room. The fire which had been kindled at twilight
danced on the brightness of silver and mirrors and sober gilding; and
the sofa toward which she had been urged by Miss Suffern heaped up
its cushions in inviting proximity to a table laden with new books and
papers. She could not recall having ever been more luxuriously housed,
or having ever had so strange a sense of being out alone, under the
night, in a windbeaten plain. She sat down by the fire and thought.

A knock on the door made her lift her head, and she saw her daughter
on the threshold. The intricate ordering of Leila's fair hair and the
flying folds of her dressinggown showed that she had interrupted her
dressing to hasten to her mother; but once in the room she paused a
moment, smiling uncertainly, as though she had forgotten the object of
her haste.

Mrs. Lidcote rose to her feet. "Time to dress, dearest? Don't scold! I
shan't be late."

"To dress?" Leila stood before her with a puzzled look. "Why, I thought,
dear--I mean, I hoped you'd decided just to stay here quietly and rest."

Her mother smiled. "But I've been resting all the afternoon!"

"Yes, but--you know you _do_ look tired. And when Susy told me just now
that you meant to make the effort--"

"You came to stop me?"

"I came to tell you that you needn't feel in the least obliged--"

"Of course. I understand that."

There was a pause during which Leila, vaguely averting herself from
her mothe