e going to hide."

"For a while we are; no letters; no telegrams; no intrusions of any
kind. Just us. See how marriage takes a hardened bachelor!"

"And a hardened spinster!" Julia chimed.

"I do hope," Marie repeated, "that you'll be very happy. When will you
come back?"

"Early next month," said Julia.

"Perhaps," Rokeby qualified.

"And the first thing we do," said Julia affectionately, "will be to
come and see how our Marie is, left all alone without us."

"Don't!" Marie begged. "You're making me gulpy. For two pins I'd cry.
You two--you've just been everything to me this year, after the
children. You don't know how lonely you're making me feel."

"But soon Osborn--"

"Osborn's coming home next week."

"Oh, great!" Rokeby cried; and Mrs. Rokeby added: "I _am_ glad.
Now you won't be lonely any more."

"I don't know," Marie said quietly.

She took Julia's bare left hand from her muff and looked at the rings
and stroked it.

"I love a new wedding ring," she said.

"Our train, darling," Rokeby reminded his wife.

"We must fly," said Julia, rising. "Our taxi's outside, with all the
clothes I've had time to pack, upon it. Desmond had packed in
anticipation, the wretch! And we've only got an hour--but we just had
to come in and tell you before we went."

"I hope you and Osborn will have another honeymoon like ours is going
to be," Rokeby cried as they hurried through the hall.

She shook her head, vaguely smiling, but her lips would frame nothing.
She was glad to shut the door upon their happiness. It seemed as if
everything young and fierce in her were pulling at her heart. How she
wanted it again, that amazing rapture and discovery! As she sat down
again by her fire in the quiet flat, she would have bartered half the
remaining years of her life for just that first year over again.

She went across to the window, pulled aside a curtain, and beheld rows
and darts of lights like stars; street lights and house lights
beckoned to her; she opened the window slightly and the distant sound
of traffic, the drums of London rolling, excited and affrayed her.

She felt too young for the sedateness into which her life was
settling.

Restless as she was, she had trained herself too well in the ruthless
habits of method and industry not to begin automatically to set all in
order against the coming of the master of the home. Feeling the need
of doing rather than of thinking, she went to the bureau, and picked