e. She did not
idealise him either, it was more serious than that; she was thrilled by
his voice, and his touch, she dreamed of him, longed for him when he was
not with her. She worried, too, for she was perfectly aware that he was
not half as fond of her as she was of him. Such a new experience puzzled
her, kept her instincts painfully on the alert. It was perhaps just this
uncertainty about his affection which made him seem more precious than
any of the others. But there was ever the other reason,
too-consciousness that Time was after her, and this her last grand
passion. She watched him as a mother-cat watches her kitten, without
seeming to, of course, for she had much experience. She had begun to
have a curious secret jealousy of Noel though why she could not have
said. It was perhaps merely incidental to her age, or sprang from that
vague resemblance between her and one who outrivalled even what she had
been as a girl; or from the occasional allusions Fort made to what he
called "that little fairy princess." Something intangible, instinctive,
gave her that jealousy. Until the death of her young cousin's lover she
had felt safe, for she knew that Jimmy Fort would not hanker after
another man's property; had he not proved that in old days, with herself,
by running away from her? And she had often regretted having told him of
Cyril Morland's death. One day she determined to repair that error. It
was at the Zoo, where they often went on Sunday afternoons. They were
standing before a creature called the meercat, which reminded them both
of old days on the veldt. Without turning her head she said, as if to
the little animal: "Do you know that your fairy princess, as you call
her, is going to have what is known as a war-baby?"

The sound of his "What!" gave her quite a stab. It was so utterly
horrified.

She said stubbornly: "She came and told me all about it. The boy is
dead, as you know. Yes, terrible, isn't it?" And she looked at him. His
face was almost comic, so wrinkled up with incredulity.

"That lovely child! But it's impossible!"

"The impossible is sometimes true, Jimmy."

"I refuse to believe it."

"I tell you it is so," she said angrily.

"What a ghastly shame!"

"It was her own doing; she said so, herself."

"And her father--the padre! My God!"

Leila was suddenly smitten with a horrible doubt. She had thought it
would disgust him, cure him of any little tendency to romanticise