rd.'

'I wonder who Mr. Edward was,' said Nelly to herself, with half shut
eyes. She had entirely forgotten Cicely's neighbourhood. But Cicely
turned round, and asked her what she was thinking of. Nelly repeated the
letter, and Cicely suddenly shewed agitation--'Edward!--Baston
Magna!--he means Edward Longmore!'

Cicely rarely cried. When she was moved, she had a way of turning a
grey-white, and speaking with particular deliberation, as though every
word were an effort. Of late, for some mysterious reason, she only
indulged occasionally in 'make-up'; there was no rouge, at any rate, on
this afternoon, to disguise her change of colour. She looked oddly at
Nelly.

'I danced with him at Christmas,' she said. 'There was a very smart
party at a house in Grosvenor Square. The Prince was there, home on
short leave, and about twenty young men in khaki, and twenty girls.
Edward Longmore was there--he wrote to me afterwards. Oh, he was much
younger than I. He was the dearest, handsomest, bravest little fellow.
When I saw his name in the list--I just'--she ground her small white
teeth--'I just _cursed_ the war! Do you know'--she rolled over on the
grass beside Nelly, her chin in her hands--'the July before the war, I
used to play tennis in a garden near London. There were always five or
six boys hanging about there--jolly handsome boys, with everything that
anybody could want--family, and money, and lots of friends--all the
world before them. And there's not one of them left. They're all
_dead_--_dead_! Think of that! Boys of twenty and twenty-one. What'll
the girls do they used to play and dance with? All their playfellows are
gone. They can't marry--they'll never marry. It hadn't anything to do
with me, of course. I'm twenty-eight. I felt like a mother to them! But
I shan't marry either!'

Nelly didn't answer for a moment. Then she put out a hand and turned
Cicely's face towards her.

'Where is he?--and what is he doing?' she said, half laughing, but
always with that something behind her smile which seemed to set her
apart.

Cicely sat up.

'He? Oh, that gentleman! Well, _he_ has got some fresh work--just the
work he wanted, he says, in the Intelligence Department, and he writes
to Willy that life is "extraordinarily interesting," and he's "glad to
have lived to see this thing, horrible as it is."'

'Well, you wouldn't wish him to be miserable?'

'I should have no objection at all to his being miserable,' said Cicely