ff little bunches
of daffodils. All down the aisle workers were twisting sprays of ivy
round the tall gas standards, in the discreet background dowdy nobodies
were wrestling with window-sills. The Vicar's wife held firmly to the
theory of universal brotherhood, but it would never have occurred to her
to ask a wealthy parishioner to "do" the windows, or a tradesman's wife
to undertake the east end. Teresa and Dane left the chancel and stood
hesitating at the head of the aisle. Now they were ready for the cut
flowers, and the cut flowers had not arrived.

"The Squire promised to send down. I wrote again last night to remind
him. He _can't_ have forgotten."

"Oh, no. They'll be here soon. There's a car at the door now."
Peignton peered forward, looking down the length of the aisle into the
sunlit churchyard beyond, and the girl watching him, as she loved to do
at unobserved moments, saw a sudden light come into the lazy eyes. She
peered in her turn, and beheld a small grey foot emerge from the door of
the car, then a second foot, and finally a tall figure, grey-robed,
grey-furred, which stood aside, sharply outlined against the darkness of
the background, and waited for the descent of still another figure,
coated in white.

Lady Cassandra! ... she had come herself, and with her Mrs Martin
Beverley. They were driving about together in the morning, a sign of
intimacy more eloquent than a dozen afternoon meetings. They were
smiling into each other's faces as they walked up the church path,
talking with the ease of lifelong friends.

Teresa felt a pang of jealousy, not of Dane Peignton,--these women were
married and could have no interest for him,--but for herself, and her
position in the Raynor household. Proud as she had been of the degree
of intimacy to which she had been admitted, in her heart she had
acknowledged the presence of a barrier shutting her out from personal
friendship. She had been a favoured acquaintance, nothing more, and now
a friend had appeared, and the acquaintance must needs stand aside.

Up the church aisle came the two women, side by side, graver now as
befitted their surroundings, yet bringing with them a whiff of the world
of gaiety and fashion, the influence of which spread subtly over the
feminine body of workers. The Vicar's wife pulled down her cuffs, and
brushed the leaves from her gown; the doctor's daughters arranged stray
locks, and placed themselves in artistic attitudes