That very afternoon--October 11 it was, the day before the autumn session of the law courts began--Aliette and her lover walked in Kensington Gardens. Even as Julia's, much of their attitude toward life had altered in the past months. The first grandly onrushing wave of the grand passion, the wave which swept them both from safe moorings into outlawry, had spent itself. They were still lovers; but now, with love, comradeship mingled. A comradeship of mutual suffering--knit closer as the days went by.

For, in love's despite, since training and inherited traditions alike unfitted them for the rÔle they played, both suffered.

To Aliette, lonely no longer, Ronnie's comradeship compensated for so much that, as yet, the social disadvantages of their position hardly mattered. Only every now and then, in lonely-waking night-hours when full perception of the thing she had done shimmered black for a moment through the rosy veils of affection, did her heart grow faint at the thought of perpetual ostracism from her kind. At other times, her sufferings, her self-torturings were all for Ronnie.

Ronnie, she knew, chafed at his defeat. Ronnie had grown to hate Brunton. Ronnie--for her sake--wanted social position, success. Ronnie loathed the illegal fact that they had had to register as "Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish and maid" at the quiet Kensington hotel, whither Moses Moffatt's shibboleth of "bachelor chambers" drove them on their return from Chilworth.

But Ronnie had other frets--money-frets--on that October afternoon when they strolled under the browning trees.

They strolled lover-like, arm in arm; and Ponto the Dane, incongruous appanage of their elopement, followed leisurely. Aliette was all in furs, soft furs that cloaked her from the cream of her chin to the slimness of her ankles. Above the furs her face showed happy, glowing with a new youth, a new softness.

"Man," she said suddenly, "do you realize that we are two thoroughly unpractical people?"

"Are we?" He pressed her arm. "Does it matter very much?"

"Of course it matters." She paused, and went on shyly: "Don't you understand that I've been living with you for three months, and that so far I haven't contributed a single penny to the--to the establishment?"

"How absurd you are!" He tried to brush the matter aside; but that she refused to allow.

"I ought to contribute something, you know. I'm not quite penniless."

"You're not going to pay my hotel bill," he parried: a little stubbornly, she thought.

"Why not? What's mine is yours."

They walked on in silence for a minute or two. Then Ronnie said:

"I'm afraid I can't quite see things that way, Alie. I suppose I'm a bit old-fashioned in my ideas. But it does seem to me that the man's responsible----" He bit off the sentence.

"I hate you to talk like that." There was a little of the old temper in Aliette's voice. "We must be sensible about money."

"Oh, don't let's bother this afternoon," he coaxed.

"But we must bother. Ronnie, be frank with me. What are we living on?"

"Oh, all sorts of things. The Jermyn Street rent; my earnings, such as they are; a bit of money I'd got saved up."

"And," she added, "the allowance your mother makes you. I wonder if we ought to take that."

"I don't see why we shouldn't. She always has made me an allowance. But of course I shouldn't like to ask her for more."

"Naturally." Aliette's brow creased. "Let's think. I've got about three hundred and fifty a year of my own. Your allowance is four. That makes seven hundred and fifty. How much is that a week?"

"Fifteen pounds," laughed Ronnie, remembering a phrase of his mother's, "No woman's financial mind covers more than seven days."

"And our hotel bill last week was twenty."

At that, the man began to feel thoroughly uncomfortable. His mind shied away from the topic. But the woman pursued it resolutely.

"We'll have to find a cheaper hotel."

"It seems rotten luck on you; the present one is uncomfortable enough. Besides," he brightened visibly, "there ought to be briefs coming in now."

"Man, you're a great optimist." There was an undercurrent of criticism in Aliette's voice, of a criticism which Ronnie felt he could not fairly resent; because already he had begun to divine the professional consequences of Brunton's enmity. Only the day before, James Wilberforce had dropped a hint--the barest hint, but sufficient to indicate which way the financial wind might blow.

"I suppose I am rather an optimist," he admitted; and for the moment they dropped the subject, reverting, as they nearly always did in their walks together, to the main problem.

"H. B. ought to be back any day now," said Ronnie, "and when he does come back, he'll simply have to file his petition."

But to-day she would have none of the problem.

"Don't let us discuss that. After all, nothing that H. does or doesn't do can really hurt us." She looked up into his eyes. "We've got each other."

"I don't mind for myself, Alie. It's you I'm thinking of. Of course we won't talk about him if you don't want to."

By now they were through Kensington Gardens, and passing the herbaceous border at Victoria Gate. They stopped to inspect the flowers. Two gardeners were at work, clearing away the wreckage of summer. The climbing roses and the clematis had withered, but dahlias still flaunted scarlet and crimson against the high dark of the shrubbery.

They walked on, silent, the dog pottering at heel; and inclined half-right across Hyde Park.

"Do you remember----" began Aliette.

"What, dear?" he prompted.

"Oh, nothing. Only I was just thinking. Mollie and I came this way, that morning we met at church parade. It seems such a long time ago."

"Am I as dull as all that?" he chaffed her. "Are you getting bored with me?"

"Bored with you!" Her voice thrilled. "Oh, man, man, you don't understand a bit. You're everything in the world to me. The only thing that ever makes me really frightened is the thought of forfeiting your love. That's because I'm happy--happy. You don't know, no man ever does know, what happiness means to a woman; how utterly miserable she can be. I was miserable with H.--miserable. Luxuries don't help--when one's unhappy. When I look back on my life before I met you, I wonder I didn't"--she hesitated--"I didn't do something desperate. I suppose I didn't know how miserable I really was. I don't suppose any woman in my position ever does know, till some man teaches her----"

"And now?" he broke in.

"Now, I'm absolutely happy. Honestly, I don't care a bit about the legal position--as you call it. What does it matter whether we're legally married or not? What does it matter whether people want to know us or whether they don't? I don't care," she ended almost defiantly; "I don't care a bit so long as I've got you; so long as we're right with our own consciences."

And really, when Aliette looks back on those unsettled days, it astonishes her how little she did care for the rest of the world. Even her parents' attitude seemed of no importance.