oul was nearly dying within her. Dear John would never think
she had not had anything since breakfast (she travelled always by a slow
train, disliking motion), and she would not for the world let him
know--so near dinner-time, giving a lot of trouble! She therefore stayed
quite quiet, smiling a little, for fear he might suspect her. Seeing
John, however, put her bag down in the wrong place, she felt stronger.

"No, darling--not there--in the window."

And while he was changing the position of the bag, her heart swelled with
joy because his back was so straight, and with the thought: 'What a pity
the dear boy has never married again! It does so keep a man from getting
moony!' With all that writing and thinking he had to do, such important
work, too, it would have been so good for him, especially at night. She
would not have expressed it thus in words--that would not have been quite
nice--but in thought Frances Freeland was a realist.

When he was gone, and she could do as she liked, she sat stiller than
ever, knowing by long experience that to indulge oneself in private only
made it more difficult not to indulge oneself in public. It really was
provoking that this nice new clasp should go wrong just this once, and
that the first time it was used! And she took from her pocket a tiny
prayer-book, and, holding it to the light, read the eighteenth psalm--it
was a particularly good one, that never failed her when she felt low--she
used no glasses, and up to the present had avoided any line between the
brows, knowing it was her duty to remain as nice as she could to look at,
so as not to spoil the pleasure of people round about her. Then saying
to herself firmly, "I do not, I WILL not want any tea--but I shall be
glad of dinner!" she rose and opened her cane trunk. Though she knew
exactly where they were, she was some time finding the pincers, because
there were so many interesting things above them, each raising a
different train of thought. A pair of field-glasses, the very
latest--the man had said--for darling Derek; they would be so useful to
keep his mind from thinking about things that it was no good thinking
about. And for dear Flora (how wonderful that she could write
poetry--poetry!) a really splendid, and perfectly new, little pill. She
herself had already taken two, and they had suited her to perfection.
For darling Felix a new kind of eau de cologne, made in Worcester,
because that was the only scent