For Aliette those first four days of her "mother-in-law's" illness were almost happy. At Julia's particular request, both lovers had abandoned the "ridiculous flat," to take up their abode in Bruton Street; and the sense of self-sacrifice--for it was a sacrifice to abandon the little home where she had been so safe and face the inevitable difficulties of her anomalous position in Julia's household--seemed yet another chance of repaying her debt.

Work (she found enormously to do) saved her from overmuch introspection. Julia, the feudalist, had never learned domestic decentralization; her daily secretary, Mrs. Sanderson, a gray-haired gentlewoman with tortoise-shell spectacles and a diffidence which only just avoided crass stupidity, had become a typewriter-thumping automaton; her cook was a mere obedient preparer of ordered meals, and even Kate seemed incapable of performing the simplest household duty on her own initiative. Resultantly there devolved on Aliette, seated of a morning in the novelist's work-room, the manifold activities of a strenuous celebrity, a housekeeper, a woman of property, and an information bureau. For, of course, everybody wanted information about the celebrity's health.

The telephone and the telegrams were a curse. The press association rang, apologetically, twice a day. The Northcliffe press, commandingly, once. Julia's American publishers cabled almost hourly; and hourly, scandal for the moment forgotten, one or other of her private acquaintances quested for news of her. Even Dot Fancourt rallied gallantly to the receiver. While as for the three other sisters Wixton and their appanages, one would have imagined them afflicted to the verge of suicide.

Of an evening, Ronnie helped Aliette to deal with the "family"; but by day she had to cope with them single-handed. The "family" were never satisfied with Mrs. Sanderson's report; the "family" demanded to speak with the hospital nurse; the "family," barred by Sir Heron's instructions from visiting, demanded to speak with Sir Heron himself. Soon Aliette began to recognize their voices--Sir John Bentham, courteous if a little aloof; Lady Clementina, full-throated and fussy; May Robinson, piteous and protestant out of the depths of St. John's Wood; Alice Edwards, distantly jovial on the trunk-line from Cheltenham. "How they must be hating me," Aliette used to think.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Julia--having coaxed permission from a reluctant nurse--sent down word that her "daughter-in-law" was to come up.

"You won't stay with her long, will you, ma'am?" said Smithers, permanently on guard at the bedroom door. (Mysteriously, since Aliette had moved to Bruton Street, the social sense of the basement had substituted "ma'am" for Mrs. Ronnie.) "The doctor says the less she talks, the better."

Aliette passed into the bedroom; and heard a weak voice say, "Leave us alone please, nurse."

Nurse--a pleasant-faced creature very much impressed at finding herself in charge of so literary an invalid--made her exit to a stiff rustle of starched linen. Aliette moved across to the bedside. Sunshine illuminated the elegance of the room, slanting down in dust-motes from the three open windows on to the Écru pile carpet. Among Julia's cut-glass toilet-ware on the porphyry Empire wash-table showed none of the paraphernalia of sickness. The pillow-propped figure on the low mahogany and gold bedstead seemed, to the visitor, rather that of a resting than of a dying woman. A frilled boudoir-cap hid Julia's hair; a padded bed-jacket of crimson silk swathed her shoulders.

"I suppose I gave you all a rare fright," she said, thinking how well she had staged the little scene.

"We were rather frightened." Aliette took a chair, obviously arranged for her, at the bedside; and began to talk aimlessly of this and that.

But Julia soon interrupted the aimless phrases. "Are my servants behaving themselves?" she asked. "Are they making you and Ronnie really comfortable? I told Smithers to maid you. I hope she's been doing it properly."

"Beautifully," prevaricated Aliette.

"You're sure you wouldn't rather have your own maid? You could shut up the flat easily enough. You don't mind coming to live with me, do you? It's," the weak voice betrayed the first sign of emotion, "it's bound to be a little difficult for you, but I'm not quite up to running things myself yet. And Mrs. Sanderson is a fool."

"Of course I don't mind. It's wonderful to feel that I can be of some use at last."

Aliette did her best to prevent the patient from talking; but Julia Cavendish, feudalist, wanted to know a thousand domestic details. Whether cook was being economical? Whether the new kitchen-maid promised to be a success? If Mrs. Sanderson had remembered to take carbon-copies of important correspondence? Whether the "family" had been very troublesome?

"Families are bad enough when one's well. They're impossible in illness," pronounced Julia. "I'm always glad my husband died abroad. One day I must tell you about Ronnie's father." She relapsed into silence, closing her eyes; and Aliette thought she had fallen asleep. But in a moment the eyes opened again. "Talking of families, my dear, how is your sister?"

"Mollie? Oh, Mollie's gone back to Devonshire."

"Is she engaged to young Wilberforce?"

"No. I don't think so."

"What a pity!"

The nurse, tapping discreetly, announced it "time for Mrs. Cavendish's medicine"; and the invalid closed the interview with a weak, "If the family call, for heaven's sake keep them out of my room."