lf seemed to suggest that not even a
servant was in the flat. A tremor grew upon her as she talked, due in
part to the consciousness that she was glad to be thus alone with Bevis.

'A place like this must seem to you to be very unhomelike,' he was
saying, as he lounged on a low chair not very far from her. 'The girls
didn't like it at all at first. I suppose it's a retrograde step in
civilization. Servants are decidedly of that opinion; we have a great
difficulty in getting them to stay here. The reason seems to me that
they miss the congenial gossip of the area door. At this moment we are
without a domestic. I found she compensated herself for disadvantages
by stealing my tobacco and cigars. She went to work with such a lack of
discretion--abstracting half a pound of honeydew at a time--that I
couldn't find any sympathy for her. Moreover, when charged with the
delinquency, she became abusive, so very abusive that we were obliged
to insist upon her immediate departure.'

'Do you think she smoked?' asked Monica laughingly.

'We have debated that point with much interest. She was a person of
advanced ideas, as you see; practically a communist. But I doubt
whether honeydew had any charms for her personally. It seems more
probable that some milkman, or baker's assistant, or even metropolitan
policeman, benefited by her communism.'

Indifferent to the progress of time, Bevis talked on with his usual
jocoseness, now and then shaking his tawny hair in a fit of laughter
the most contagious.

'But I have something to tell you,' he said at length more seriously.
'I am going to leave England. They want me to live at Bordeaux for a
tune, two or three years perhaps. It's a great bore, but I shall have
to go. I am not my own master.'

'Then your sisters will go to Guernsey?'

'Yes. I dare say I shall leave about the end of July.'

He became silent, looking at Monica with humorous sadness.

'Do you think your sisters will soon be here, Mr. Bevis?' Monica asked,
with a glance round the room.

'I think so. Do you know, I did a very silly thing. I wanted your visit
(if you came) to be a surprise for them, and so--in fact, I said
nothing about it. When I got here from business, a little before three,
they were just going out. I asked them if they were sure they would be
back in less than an hour. Oh, they were quite sure--not a doubt about
it. I do hope they haven't altered their mind, and gone to call
somewhere. But, Mrs. Wid