---"

"Oh, I _am_ sorry," she broke in, "awfully. I never thought all that
of course. I simply felt it was so terrible and you might help,
because you always know about things, somehow."

That touched him at last. He melted suddenly.

"Well," he said quite cheerily, "it's done now, so bother the old work.
We'll see if we can't find the thing and save a reward. That's another
way of making money, eh?"

So after cross-examination as to routes and so on, out they went, and
he it was who found the watch, exactly where--she now remembered--she
had felt hot and pulled hard at the stiff clip of her chinchilla stole.

"Tally-ho!" he shouted gaily, holding it aloft and waving it; then as
she ran delightedly across from her own line of search, "so I've not
wasted my day's work in vain!"

She felt that more apologies must take the place of thanks. She also
wished that she had never spoilt his work but paid five pounds reward
instead. And she resolved that nothing short of thieves or fire would
take her into his room before lunch again.

Bad news, hereafter, she obediently kept till dinner. His day's work
was over, and he had recovered by next morning's bout.

Other things, too, she learnt. When possible, she would suppress a bad
review or lose the paper until evening. Unluckily, he had them all
sent by an agency and she did not often succeed. She always said,
however, that nobody went by that paper.... She never praised a writer
who was younger and more famous than himself. She was conveniently
blind if envelopes arrived addressed in his own writing. She always
saw that his room was left properly untidy--all except the flowers,
which must never show the slightest sign of age. She came to avoid the
word "reliable" and after six months never once split an infinitive at
meals. Hubert at such moments would throw down his knife with a
grimace of pain. He said it was a physical sensation, like cut corks,
and spoilt his appetite, which she could never understand. And
sometimes if it happened early in the day, she found at night that she
had spoilt his work as well....

Such was the routine of Hubert Brett, ex-bachelor at thirty-five and
writer of repute; all sacred and to be taken as an earnest matter--even
that half-hour wherein he Kept In Touch With Modern Movements.

Helena learnt this, too, early.

There had been great excitement in the suburb after lunch. An
aeroplane had passed upon its way to Hendon,