s ceasing to be a friend. Still she
did not sleep. Was it likely that she should sleep, with the tragedy and
woe of the entire universe crushing her?

VI

Mr Edward Coe and Olive Two arose from their bed the next morning in
great spirits. Mr Coe had told both his wife and Mimi that the hour of
departure from Rottingdean would be six o'clock. But this was an
exaggeration. So far as his wife was concerned he had already found it
well to exaggerate on such matters. A little judicious exaggeration
lessened the risk of missing trains and other phenomena which cannot be
missed without confusion and disappointment.

As a fact it was already six o'clock when Edward Coe looked forth from
the bedroom window. He was completely dressed. His wife also was
completely dressed. He therefore felt quite safe about the train. The
window, which was fairly high up in the world, gave on the south-east,
so that he had a view, not only of the vast naked downs billowing away
towards Newhaven, but also of the Channel, which was calm, and upon
which little parcels of fog rested. The sky was clear overhead, of a
greenish sapphire colour, and the autumnal air bit and gnawed on the
skin like some friendly domestic animal, and invigorated like an
expensive tonic. On the dying foliage of a tree near the window millions
of precious stones hung. Cocks were boasting. Cows were expressing a
justifiable anxiety. And in the distance a small steamer was making a
great deal of smoke about nothing, as it puffed out of Newhaven harbour.

"Olive," he said.

"What is it?"

She was putting hats into the top of her trunk. She had a special
hat-box, but the hats were too large for it, and she packed minor
trifles in the hat-box, such as skirts. This was one of the details
which first indicated to an astounded Edward Coe that a woman is never
less like a man than when travelling.

"Come here," he commanded her.

She obeyed.

"Look at that," he commanded her, pointing to the scene of which the
window was the frame.

She obeyed. She also looked at him with her dark, passionate, and yet
half-mocking eyes.

"Yes," she said, "and who's going to make that trunk lock?"

She snapped her fingers at the sweet morning influences of Nature, to
which he was peculiarly sensitive. And yet he was delighted. He found it
entirely delicious that she should say, when called upon to admire
Nature: "Who's going to make that trunk lock?"

He stroked her hair.

"