a
cool, restrained man of the world, old for his years. In fact it was he
who was now a stranger--but a stranger who had most attractive manners,
and who had somehow slipped very easily into their everyday life. Janet
liked his deferential manner to the master of the house, she enjoyed his
kindly and good-humoured, if slightly satirical dealings with Jack and
with pretty Rosamund, and she was very grateful to him for the way he
treated queer, little Timmy, her own beloved changeling child.

And now something happened that touched her, and made her suddenly feel
as if she was with the old Godfrey Radmore again.

"Look here," he said, in a low, hesitating voice, "I want to tell you,
Janet, that I didn't know till yesterday about George. You'll think me a
fool--but somehow I always thought of him as being safe in India." And
then with sudden passion he asked:--"How can you say that everything is
the same in Old Place with George not here? Why, to me, George was as
much part of Old Place as--as Betty is!"

"We all thought you knew--at least I wasn't sure."

"Thank God _he_ didn't think so poorly of me as that," he muttered, and
then he looked away, his eyes smarting with unshed tears. "Nothing will
ever be the same to me again without George in the world."

As she said nothing, he went on with sudden passion:--"Every other
country in Europe has changed utterly since the War, but England seemed
to me, till last night, exactly the same--only rather bigger and more
bustling than nine years ago." He drew a long breath. "Timmy and I went
into the post-office last evening, and Cobbett asked me to go in, and see
his wife. I thought I remembered her so well--and when I saw her, Janet,
I didn't know her! Then I asked after her boys--and she told me."

"It's strange that a man who went through it all himself should feel like
that," she said slowly.

The door opened suddenly and Rosamund's pretty head appeared: "There's a
message come through saying that your car's all right, and that it will
be along in about an hour," she exclaimed joyfully. To Rosamund, Godfrey
Radmore was in very truth a stranger, and a very attractive stranger at
that.

As a rule, after breakfast, all the young people went their various ways,
but this morning they were all hanging about waiting vaguely for Godfrey
to come and do something with one or all of them. Rosamund was longing to
ask him whether he knew any of the London theatrical managers; Tom wa