And, during the curious silence, he gradually and slowly took in the
soothing facts. He regained his sense of proportion, of perspective. He
saw she was disillusioned about Harry; he felt that the infatuation was
over; and, what was more, he realised, to his unutterable relief, that
she was not going to talk about it. How he dreaded that terrible
explicitness of women, their passion for tidying up, their love of
labels! He would not even have to hear it called a sealed subject, and
he would not have to say anything at all.

* * * * *

He looked out of the window again, began to whistle in a slightly
embarrassed way, and then said casually--

"Let's come out, Val. The lawn wants mowing."

THE END

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes

The original spelling and punctuation were retained, except for
a few issues that were believed to be typographical mistakes.

The full list of corrections is as follows:

+------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
| page | original text | corrected to | explanation |
+------+--------------------+--------------------+-------------------+
| 15 | old-fashoned | old-fashioned | a misspelling |
| | | | |
| 32 | ,old chap' | 'old chap' | comma corrected |
| | | | to single quote |
| | | | |
| 142 | of colour | off colour | a misspelling |
| | | | |
| 144 | CAPTER | CHAPTER | a misspelling |
| | | | |
| 153 | darling. | darling." | Double quote |
| | | | added. |
| | | | |
| 181 | on the 'thou.'"... | on the 'thou.'..." | The position of |
| | | | ellipsis was |
| | | | changed. |
| | | | |
| 201 | airdresser's | hairdresser's | a misspelling |
| | | |