her certain sentimental longings.
"DEAR LADY OF THE STARRY FLOWERS,

"Exiturus (sic) to saluto! The tender carries you this message of
good-bye. Simply speaking, I hate leaving South Africa. And of all my
memories, the last will live the longest. Grape harvest at Constantia,
and you singing: 'If I could be the falling dew: If ever you and your
husband come to England, do let me know, that I may try and repay a
little the happiest five days I've spent out here.

"Your very faithful servant,
"TIMMY FORT."

She remembered a very brown face, a tall slim figure, and something
gallant about the whole of him. What was he like after ten years?
Grizzled, married, with a large family? An odious thing--Time! And
Cousin Edward's little yellow letter.

Good heavens! Twenty-six years ago--before he was a parson, or married
or anything! Such a good partner, really musical; a queer, dear fellow,
devoted, absentminded, easily shocked, yet with flame burning in him
somewhere.
'DEAR LEILA,

"After our last dance I went straight off'--I couldn't go in. I went
down to the river, and walked along the bank; it was beautiful, all grey
and hazy, and the trees whispered, and the cows looked holy; and I walked
along and thought of you. And a farmer took me for a lunatic, in my
dress clothes. Dear Leila, you were so pretty last night, and I did love
our dances. I hope you are not tired, and that I shall see you soon
again:

"Your affectionate cousin,
"EDWARD PIERSON."

And then he had gone and become a parson, and married, and been a widower
fifteen years. She remembered the death of his wife, just before she
left for South Africa, at that period of disgrace when she had so shocked
her family by her divorce. Poor Edward--quite the nicest of her cousins!
The only one she would care to see again. He would be very old and
terribly good and proper, by now.

Her wheel of Regent's Park was coming full circle, and the sun was up
behind the houses, but still no sound of traffic stirred. She stopped
before a flower-bed where was some heliotrope, and took a long, luxurious
sniff: She could not resist plucking a sprig, too, and holding it to her
nose. A sudden want of love had run through every nerve and fibre of
her; she shivered, standing there with her eyes half closed, above the
pale violet blossom. Then, noting by her wrist-watch that it was four
o'clock, she hurried on, to get to her bed, for she would have to be on
duty