ground, and gnash
my teeth and shriek at the top of my voice.'

'Oh, yes, do. And then I'll cry all the way to Liverpool, and I shall
have a racking headache and feel quite miserable and happy.'

Dick meditated for a moment.

'You see, we have an instinctive horror of exhibiting our emotion. I
don't know why it is, I suppose training or the inheritance of our
sturdy fathers, but we're ashamed to let people see what we feel. But I
don't know whether on that account our feelings are any the less keen.
Don't you think there's a certain beauty in a grief that forbids itself
all expression? You know, I admire Lucy tremendously, and as she came
towards us on the platform I thought there was something very fine in
her calmness.'

'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Crowley, sharply. 'I should have liked her
much better if she had clung to her brother and sobbed and had to be
torn away.'

'Did you notice that she left us without even shaking hands? It was a
very small omission, but it meant that she was quite absorbed in her
grief.'

They reached Mrs. Crowley's tiny house in Norfolk Street, and she asked
Dick to come in.

'Sit down and read the paper,' she said, 'while I go and powder my
nose.'

Dick made himself comfortable. He blessed the charming woman when a
butler of imposing dimensions brought in all that was necessary to make
a cocktail. Mrs. Crowley cultivated England like a museum specimen. She
had furnished her drawing-room with Chippendale furniture of an
exquisite pattern. No chintzes were so smartly calendered as hers, and
on the walls were mezzotints of the ladies whom Sir Joshua had painted.
The chimney-piece was adorned with Lowestoft china, and on the silver
table was a collection of old English spoons. She had chosen her butler
because he went so well with the house. His respectability was
portentous, his gravity was never disturbed by the shadow of a smile;
and Mrs. Crowley treated him as though he were a piece of decoration,
with an impertinence that fascinated him. He looked upon her as an
outlandish freak, but his heavy British heart was surrendered to her
entirely, and he watched over her with a solicitude that amused and
touched her.

Dick thought that the little drawing-room was very comfortable, and when
Mrs. Crowley returned, after an unconscionable time at the toilet-table,
he was in the happiest mood. She gave a rapid glance at the glasses.

'You're a perfect hero,' she said. 'You've waited till