he woke.

Treading softly, he went into the next room where Dossie lay in her own
little bed beside his mother's, her little seven-year-old girl body
stretched out in all its dainty slenderness (so unlike Stanny's. He saw
with a pang of sudden passion the sweet difference). Her face, laid
sideways in her golden-brown hair, showed already a fine edge, nose, and
mouth and chin turned subtly, and carved out of their baby softness to
the likeness of his own. He stooped and kissed Dossie's hair, and took
without touching the sweetness of her mouth. Then he ran softly down the
stairs.

His mother heard him running and came to the door of the room. "You're
not going out like that," she said, "without an overcoat? It'll rain
before you're back, I know, and that new suit'll be ruined."

"Rot! It _can't_ rain on a night like this. Good night, Mother. Don't go
sittin' up. I don't know when I'll be in."

"I'll hot some cocoa for you last thing and leave it on the trivet."

"Sha'n't want cocoa."

"What shall you want then?"

"Oh, Lord!" His nerves were all on edge. He couldn't bear it.
"_Nothing!_" he cried, as he rushed out.

At the gate it struck him that he had been a brute to her. He turned. He
rushed back to her. He put his arm round her and kissed her.

"You're all right now, aren't you?"

"Yes, Ran, dear, I'm all right." She smiled. "Run away and don't keep
Winny waiting."

(Heaven only knew what it cost her.)

And Ranny looked back, laughing, through the doorway. "You know, Mother,
it reelly _is_ all right. And you're an angel."

And she said, "There! Go along with you."

He went.

* * * * *

"Ranny, how nice you look!"

Winny herself was looking nice and knew it. She wore a green cotton
gown trimmed with white pipings, and a thing she called a Peggy hat that
was half a bell and half a bonnet and had diminutive roses sewn on it
here and there like buttons.

They were going down the long entrance to the Exhibition, between
painted walls, in brilliant illumination, and in publicity that might
have been trying if they had had eyes for anything except each other.

Winny's eyes were brimming with joy and tenderness as she looked at him.
If she loved the new gray suit, the brown boots, and the Trilby hat, she
did not love them more than the shabby blue serge with the place she
knew in the lining where she had mended it. All the same, it was
impossible to see him in such thing