The love of a man for a woman, and of a woman for her mate are very blind, very selfish, when compared with the love of a mother for her son. Every week, as June flamed into July, as her fears for Julia subsided, as the fret of London dwindled into memory and the country wove its soothing spells more and more surely about her consciousness; every week-end when she drove to welcome her lover at the little wayside station which served Daffadillies, Aliette grew more and more radiant, more and more akin to the woman of a year ago, the woman whose kisses had made paradise of Chilworth Cove.

Here, under the ramparting downs, even as then by the creaming beaches, no harsh breeze from the outer world blew cold to wither the crimson flowers of their lonely happiness. Even as at Chilworth, no strangers came nigh them. Friends, acquaintances, her chagrined family--Julia banned them all. The rare visitors from neighboring places had to content their curiosity with leaving cards. The press, satisfied of convalescence, left them undisturbed. Miraculously the telephone had ceased to ring.

So while in the high rooms and on the smooth lawns of Daffadillies Julia worked undistracted, glad that her loved ones, all unknowing what they did, should make high holiday, Ronnie and Aliette, careless of Hector, careless of scandal, careless of ostracism, played man and wife: until, since no word, no thought, no living creature reminded them of reality, their play grew truth and they forgot.

In this, their second honeymoon-time, their second oasis of make-believe in the desert of unmarried life, Daffadillies became very "Joyous Gard," love's castle whence they rode out together--every week-end--on hired nags--into fairyland. Southward to the downs or eastward into the weald they rode; and wonderful it was once again to feel even hired horseflesh under them, to recapture for ecstatic moments on swift scurries across sheep-bitten turf the mad inexplicable bliss of their first meeting long and long ago in the hunting-field.

"Man, if only hounds ran in summertime," Aliette would laugh, and crack a playful whip at Ponto lolloping, stern high, beside them.

For if the man and the woman were happy, the huge hound was in his seventh heaven. The great house suited him. His harlequin shape might have been bred to match the gleam and shadows of those stone terraces where--coat silken from the chamois-leather, slitty eyes somnolent yet watchful--he basked in sunshine or bayed the moon till Aliette, fearful for the invalid's comfort, drove him to the stables.

In "Joyous Gard" even Dennis and Etta were forgotten. How could Aliette desire dream-children or any children so long as her present happiness endured? To feel that Ronnie still cared, that the mere touch of her hand could still kindle in him the flames of their early passion; to realize herself responsible for his mother's comfort; to know that at last she was being of real service to both of them--these things sufficed the woman.

But the man, subconsciously, still yearned for material success, for the prizes of his profession, for the fame and the emoluments of it. At the woman's touch not only passion but ambition kindled him. If only once, just once, he could meet and defeat, snatch a forensic victory from the "hanging prosecutor."