t Mrs. Hilbery's eye when they had finished
luncheon. The blue and purple and white of the bowl, standing in a pool
of variegated light on a polished Chippendale table in the drawing-room
window, made her stop dead with an exclamation of pleasure.

"Who is lying ill in bed, Katharine?" she demanded. "Which of our
friends wants cheering up? Who feels that they've been forgotten and
passed over, and that nobody wants them? Whose water rates are overdue,
and the cook leaving in a temper without waiting for her wages? There
was somebody I know--" she concluded, but for the moment the name of
this desirable acquaintance escaped her. The best representative of the
forlorn company whose day would be brightened by a bunch of anemones
was, in Katharine's opinion, the widow of a general living in the
Cromwell Road. In default of the actually destitute and starving, whom
she would much have preferred, Mrs. Hilbery was forced to acknowledge
her claims, for though in comfortable circumstances, she was extremely
dull, unattractive, connected in some oblique fashion with literature,
and had been touched to the verge of tears, on one occasion, by an
afternoon call.

It happened that Mrs. Hilbery had an engagement elsewhere, so that the
task of taking the flowers to the Cromwell Road fell upon Katharine. She
took her letter to Cassandra with her, meaning to post it in the first
pillar-box she came to. When, however, she was fairly out of doors, and
constantly invited by pillar-boxes and post-offices to slip her envelope
down their scarlet throats, she forbore. She made absurd excuses, as
that she did not wish to cross the road, or that she was certain to pass
another post-office in a more central position a little farther on. The
longer she held the letter in her hand, however, the more persistently
certain questions pressed upon her, as if from a collection of voices
in the air. These invisible people wished to be informed whether she
was engaged to William Rodney, or was the engagement broken off? Was
it right, they asked, to invite Cassandra for a visit, and was William
Rodney in love with her, or likely to fall in love? Then the questioners
paused for a moment, and resumed as if another side of the problem had
just come to their notice. What did Ralph Denham mean by what he said to
you last night? Do you consider that he is in love with you? Is it right
to consent to a solitary walk with him, and what advice are you going
to give h