t the reason? How awfully funny of you!" and she gave
one of her sudden bursts of laughter.

He had a swift feeling that this was not quite the same as the reception
of his confession by his father in that long-ago; but he thought
immediately, "The thing's quite different." Anyway, he had confessed.
She knew why he had come back so suddenly. He felt immensely happy. And
when she said, "I think we'll have some of the roses," he gaily replied,
"Yes, rather. These roses!"

Fine! How easy to be on jolly terms!

And immediately it proved not so easy. He had got over the rocks of
"niggling"; he found himself in the shoals of exasperation.

II

She cut the first rose and held it to her lips, smelling it. "Lovely.
Who was your letter from, Mark?"

He thought, "How on earth did she know?" He had forgotten it himself.
"How ever did you know? From Lady Tybar. They're back."

"I saw you from the window with the postman. Lady Tybar! Whatever was
she writing to you about?"

He somehow did not like this. Why "_whatever_"? And being watched was
rather beastly; he remembered he had fiddled about with the
letter,--half put it in his pocket and then taken it out again. And why
not? What did it matter? But he had a prevision that it was going to
matter. Mabel did not particularly like Nona. He said, "Just to say
they're back. She wants us to go up there."

"An invitation? Whyever didn't she write to me?"

"Whyever" again!--"May I see it?"

He took the letter from his pocket and handed it to her. "It's not
exactly an invitation--not formal."

She did what he called "flicked" the letter out of its envelope. He
watched her reading it and in his mind he could see as perfectly as she
with her eyes, the odd, neat script; in his mind he read it with her,
word by word.

Dear Marko--We're back. We've been from China to Peru almost. Come
up one day and be bored about it. How are you?

Nona.

His thought was, "Damn the letter!"

Mabel handed it back, without returning it to its envelope. She said,
"No, it's not formal."

She snipped three roses with astonishing swiftness,--_snip, snip, snip_!

Sabre sought about in his mind for something to say. There was nothing
in his mind to say. He had an absurd vision of his two hands feeling
about in the polished interior of a skull, as one might fumble for
something in a large jar.

At the end of an enormous cavity of time he found some slight remark
about blight on t