while lovers--if
worth the name--go off at sight. In many cases--oh, so many!--the
behaviour of the Catherine Wheel is painfully true to life. Its
fire-spin flags and dies and perishes, and nothing is left of it but a
pitiful black core that gives a last spasmodic jump and is for ever
still!

Fireworks are only referred to here in connection with the former
property. When Gwen reappeared at Pensham, Miss Torrens--this is her own
expression--"cleared out" until her brother and her visitor "came to
their senses." The Catherine Wheel, in their case, had by that time
settled down from a tempest of flame-spray to a steady lamplight,
endurable by bystanders. The story need not wait quite so long, but may
avail itself of the first return of sanity.

"Dearest--are you really going to stop till Saturday?"

"If you think we shan't quarrel. Four whole days and a bit at each end!
_I_ think it's tempting Providence."

"Why not stop over Sunday, and make an honourable week of it and no
stinting?"

"Because I have a papa coming back to his ancestral home, on Saturday
evening, and he will come back boiled and low from Bath waters, inside
and out, and he'll want a daughter to give him tone. He gets rid of the
gout, but ..."

"But. Exactly! It's the insoluble residuum that comes back. However, you
_will_ be here till Friday night."

"Can't even promise that! I may be sent for."

"Why?... Oh, I know--the old lady. How is she? Tell me more about her.
Tell me lots about her."

Whereupon Gwen, who had been looking forward to doing so, started on an
exhaustive narrative of her visit to Strides Cottage. She had not got
far when Irene thought it safe to return--hearing probably the narrative
tone of voice--and then she had to tell it all over again.

"When I left the Cottage yesterday at about three o'clock," said Gwen,
in conclusion, "she was so much better that I felt quite hopeful about
her."

"Quite hopeful about her?" Irene repeated. "But if she has nothing the
matter with her, except old age, why be anything but hopeful?"

"You would see if you saw her. She looks as if a puff of wind would blow
her away like thistledown."

"That," Adrian said, "is a good sign. There is no guarantee of a long
life like attenuation. Bloated people die shortly after you make their
acquaintance. No, no--for true vitality, give me your skeleton! A
healthy old age really sets in as soon as one is spoken of as still
living."

"Oh dear, yes!"