nse of sudden keen regret as the tall cloaked figure with its look of
youth and resoluteness faded into the distance.

When he reached the Lion House the children were waiting. "Did you
hear him roar?" Teddy asked as he climbed in.

"No."

"Well, he did, and we came out 'cause it fwightened Peggy."

"Frightened--" from Nurse.

"Fr-ightened. But I liked the leopards best."

"Why?"

"Because they're pre-itty."

"You can't always trust--pretty things."

"Can't you tre-ust--leopards--General Drake?"

The General was not sure, and presently he fell into silence. His mind
was on a pretty woman whom he could not trust.

That night he said to Jean, "Hilda is going to France."

"Oh--how do you know?"

"I met her in the Park."

He was sitting, very tired, in his big chair. Jean's little hand was
in his.

"Poor Hilda," he said at last, looking into the fire, as if he saw
there the vision of his lost dreams.

"Oh, no--" Jean protested.

"Yes, my dear, there is so much that is good in the worst of us, and so
much that is bad in the best--and perhaps she struggles with
temptations which never assail you."

Jean's lips were set in an obstinate line. "Daddy was always saying
things like that about Hilda."

"Well, we men are apt to be charitable--to beauty in distress." The
General was keenly and humorously aware that if Hilda had been ugly, he
might not have been so anxious about the pink parasol. He might not,
indeed, have pitied her at all!

And now in Jean's heart grew up a sharply defined fear of Hilda. In
the old days there had been cordial dislike, jealousy, perhaps, but
never anything like this. The question persisted in the back of her
mind. If Hilda went to France, would she see Daddy and weave her
wicked spells. To find the General melting into pity, in spite of the
chaos which Hilda's treachery had created, was to wonder if Daddy, too,
might melt.

She wrote to Derry about it.

"I would try and see her if I knew what to say, but when I even think
of it I am scared. I never liked her, and I feel now as if I should be
glad to pin together the pages of my memory of her, as I pinned
together the pages of one of my story books when I was a little girl.
There was a shark under water in the picture and two men were trying to
get away from him. I hated that picture and shivered every time I
looked at it, so I stuck in a pin and shut out the sight of it.

"Your father has had two letters