.

"Things will never be the same as they were...." And in their hearts
they said, "We're getting old--we aren't wanted as we once were."

Meanwhile there was a fine funeral down at Beaminster. The Queen was
represented, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, all the
heads of all the old families in England, artists and one or two very
distinguished actor-managers (who looked far more sumptuous than anyone
else present).... Everyone was there.

Christopher detected Mrs. Bronson and wondered what the Duchess would
think of it if she knew: Brun, also, although Christopher did not see
him, flashed upon them from the Continent, was present, neat and solemn
and immensely observant. It was all admirable and worthy of the best
English traditions.

"She was a fine figure," said the Prime Minister, who had known her and
disliked her intensely. "We shall never see her like again," but his
sigh was nearer relief than regret.

II

Christopher, three days after the funeral, went to have tea with Roddy
and Rachel. He was a man of great physical strength and had never had
"nerves" in his life, but he was feeling, just now, tired out. He had
not realized, in the least, during all these years, the part that that
old woman played in his life, and he found that his whole scheme of
things was now disorganized and without vitality. It was vitality that
she had given him, a tiresome, troublesome, irritating vitality perhaps,
but, nevertheless a fire, an energy, a driving curiosity.

He would capture it again, his eagerness to investigate, to assist, to
prophesy, but it would never any more be quite the same energy--everyone
with whom she had had anything to do would find life now a little
different....

Some weeks before her death Roddy had sent for him. "I'm awfully upset,
Christopher," he said and then he had told him about the scene in his
rooms and had begged to know the truth. "I hear she's much worse--she's
had a stroke--I wrote to her and she hasn't answered me. Christopher,
tell me truthfully, was it her comin' to me that day and all the kick-up
and everythin' that made her so much worse?"

Christopher had reassured him--"Quite honestly, if she'd asked my leave
to let her go out that afternoon I'd not have granted it. But as it
turned out she wasn't a bit the worse. I saw her directly
afterwards--she told me all about it. She was rather grimly pleased.
Mind you, it marked, I think, a kind of crisis. As she put