eat the experiment.

She announced the engagement, and a letter from Minna came flying to the
Riviera, saying that all sorts of terrible things were known about the
Colonel, and imploring Henrietta to desist. She did not desist, but very
soon the Colonel did, having discovered that her fortune was not so
large as he had been given to suppose. There was a solid something it is
true, but for Henrietta, quite middle-aged and decidedly cross (she
imagined she was never cross with him), he felt he must have a very
considerable something. He wrote a letter breaking off the engagement,
and left the Riviera abruptly, having made a good thing out of his
season. Henrietta had lent him, _he_ said--given, others said--over
three hundred pounds.

"And now we shall have a terrible piece of work," said Minna to Louie.
"You know what Henrietta always is--what she was about that other affair
with a man years ago, and again when Evelyn's little girl died. She gets
so excited and overwrought."

But Henrietta quite upset their expectations. This, which most people
might have thought the most serious misfortune which had befallen her,
affected her very little. In her heart of hearts she was saying: "Well,
when all's said and done, I've had my offer like everyone else." She was
grateful for the "dears" too. She did not realize that there had been
absolutely nothing behind them. She answered the Colonel's speedy
application for more money, and continued to send him supplies from
time to time.

Evelyn and Herbert had returned to England, and had settled on the South
Coast. Two boys had been born in Canada, and had grown and prospered.
Henrietta stayed with Evelyn for a fortnight whenever she was back in
England, but somehow the visits were not the pleasure they should have
been.

Evelyn was still delicate, and Herbert had begged Henrietta when she saw
her to make no allusion to their loss. Evelyn was delighted at showing
her boys, and Henrietta was pleased for her that she should have them,
but to her they did not in the least take the place of the dead. They
were not hers; she was almost indignant with Evelyn for caring for them
so much, and accused her in her heart of forgetfulness. This made her
irritable, which Herbert resented, and then Evelyn was nervous because
Herbert and Henrietta did not get on well together. Evelyn's letters to
her were very affectionate, the only real pleasure, in any reasonable
sense of the word, in Henriett