you?"

"Introductions went out years ago. Come by the side gate."

She came. She held a shady hat in her hand and walked on tip-toe.

"Sh!" she cautioned; "no one must see me. I have a reputation, you
know. I don't want the Vicar to denounce me from the pulpit on Sunday
in front of Baby."

"I will be quite frank with you," she went on, holding out her left
hand with a dramatic flourish; "I am married--I have a husband."

I gave a hollow groan; then, with a manly effort, I mastered my
emotion.

"I hope he's nice to you," I said.

"No, he isn't. He grouches off to the office in the morning and
grouches back in the evening and reads newspapers. He's just grouched
off now."

"The callous brute!" I hissed through my teeth.

"There's worse than that," she said darkly.

"No!"

"Yes. To-day, to-day is an anniversary, and he forgot it." The manner
was that of MADAME BERNHARDT.

"Anniversaries," I said reassuringly, "are difficult to remember. They
accumulate so."

"Are you defending him?" she protested.

"Er--no," I said hastily. "The man's an unmitigated scoundrel. He
ought to be divorced or something. What anniversary was it?"

"Our wedding-day," she said with a sob in the voice.

"Heavens!" I said. "Oh, the dastardly ruffian!"

"_You_ wouldn't forget your wedding-day, would you?"

"_Never!_" I said hoarsely.

"You're quite rather nice," she sighed.

"You're adorable," I said readily.

"How lovely! My husband never says things like that." And she leant
against my shoulder.

We got on rather well after that. We had lunch in an inn garden, where
you could smell lavender and sweet peas and roses and where there were
box hedges turned under magical spells into giant birds. We discovered
a stream in a wood with hart's-tongue fern growing along its banks. I
picked her armfuls of wild roses.

"It's to make up," I said, "because your brute of a husband forgot
your wedding-day."

"I'd love to be married to you," she said brazenly.

I turned aside to brush away a bitter tear.

It was almost dusk when we got back to the side gate.

"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go away quickly; I believe that's the
Vicar coming down the road."

Then she shut the gate with gentle swiftness in my face. I walked
round to the front door. She was in the hall.

"Hello!" she said; "I hope you had a good day at the office?"

"Thanks," I said; "pretty rotten."

"I've had a lovely day," she said; "I picked up such a nice you