harm had been done. It
was grateful to them to think so, because of that stewardship at Monte
Carlo, of which they could not render too good account. The warm sleepy
days, with a little croquet and a little paddling on the river, and much
sitting out of doors, when the Colonel would read aloud from Tennyson,
were very pleasant. To him--if not to Mrs. Ercott--it was especially
jolly to be out of Town 'this confounded crowded time of year.' And so
the days of early June went by, each finer than the last.

And then Cramier came down, without warning on a Friday evening. It was
hot in London . . . the session dull. . . . The Jubilee turning
everything upside down. . . . They were lucky to be out of Town!

A silent dinner--that!

Mrs. Ercott noticed that he drank wine like water, and for minutes at a
time fixed his eyes, that looked heavy as if he had not been sleeping,
not on his wife's face but on her neck. If Olive really disliked and
feared him--as John would have it--she disguised her feelings very well!
For so pale a woman she was looking brilliant that night. The sun had
caught her cheeks, perhaps. That black low-cut frock suited her, with
old Milanese-point lace matching her skin so well, and one carnation, of
darkest red, at her breast. Her eyes were really sometimes like black
velvet. It suited pale women to have those eyes, that looked so black at
night! She was talking, too, and laughing more than usual. One would
have said: A wife delighted to welcome her husband! And yet there was
something--something in the air, in the feel of things--the lowering
fixity of that man's eyes, or--thunder coming, after all this heat!
Surely the night was unnaturally still and dark, hardly a breath of air,
and so many moths out there, passing the beam of light, like little pale
spirits crossing a river! Mrs. Ercott smiled, pleased at that image.
Moths! Men were like moths; there were women from whom they could not
keep away. Yes, there was something about Olive that drew men to her.
Not meretricious--to do her justice, not that at all; but something soft,
and-fatal; like one of these candle-flames to the poor moths. John's
eyes were never quite as she knew them when he was looking at Olive; and
Robert Cramier's--what a queer, drugged look they had! As for that other
poor young fellow--she had never forgotten his face when they came on him
in the Park!

And when after dinner they sat on the veranda, they were a