and
Sara had succeeded in enticing the hermit within the charmed circle of
their friendship, and he could now be depended upon to join their little
gatherings--"provided," as he had bluntly told Audrey, "that you can put
up with my manners and morals."

Mrs. Maynard had only laughed.

"I'm not in the least likely to find fault with your manners," she said
cheerfully. "They're really quite normal, and as for your morals, they
are your own affair, my dear man. Anyway, there is at least one bond
between us--Monkshaven heartily disapproves of both of us."

Greenacres was a delightful place, built rather on the lines of a French
country house, with the sitting-rooms leading one into the other and
each opening in its turn on to a broad wooden verandah. The latter
ran round three sides of the house, and in summer the delicate pink of
Dorothy Perkins fought for supremacy with the deeper red of the Crimson
Rambler, converting it into a literal bower of roses.

Audrey was on the steps to greet the two girls when they arrived,
looking, as usual, as though she had just quitted the hands of an expert
French maid. It was in a great measure to the ultra-perfection of
her toilette that she owed the critical attitude accorded her by the
feminine half of Monkshaven. To the provincial mind, the fact that she
dyed her hair, ordered her frocks from Paris, and kept a French chef to
cook her food, were all so many indications of an altogether worldly and
abandoned character--and of a wealth that was secretly to be envied--and
the more venomous among Audrey's detractors lived in the perennial hope
of some day unveiling the scandal which they were convinced lay hidden
in her past.

Audrey was perfectly aware of the gossip of which she was the
subject--and completely indifferent to it.

"It amuses them," she would say blithely, "and it doesn't hurt me in the
least. If Mr. Trent and I both left the neighbourhood, Monkshaven would
be at a loss for a topic of conversation--unless they decided, as they
probably would, that we had eloped together!"

She herself was quite above the petty meanness of envying another
woman's looks or clothes, and she beamed frank admiration over Molly's
appearance as she led the way into the house.

"Molly, you're too beautiful to be true," she declared, pausing in the
hall to inspect the girl's young loveliness in its setting of shady
hat and embroidered muslin frock. Big golden poppies on the hat, and a
gir