THE door of Mrs. Tropenell's long low drawing-room opened very quietly, and Laura Pavely came through into the room.

She had left a brightly lighted hall for a room of which the only present illumination radiated from a shaded reading lamp standing on a little table behind which sat her hostess. Thus, for perhaps as long as half a minute, Laura thought herself alone.

During that half minute Mrs. Tropenell, with eyes well accustomed to the shaded light, gazed at her visitor with an eager, searching look, the look of one who wishes to see more, and to see further, than she has ever seen before.

But what she saw—all she saw—was the Laura she knew with a knowledge that was at once so superficially close, and so little intimate. A woman whose stillness of manner—a manner which at times made her appear almost inanimate—covered, as Mrs. Tropenell had secret reason to know, an extraordinary force of negative will power. It was a force which had even pierced Godfrey Pavely's complacency, and shattered his firm belief in all the rights that English law bestows on the man who has the good or ill fortune to be a husband.

As Laura advanced into the room her hostess saw that her visitor's beautifully shaped head, set proudly and freely on the slender shoulders, was thrown back in a characteristic gesture of attention, and, with a touch of reluctance, she admired afresh the masses of fair, cendrÉ hair drawn back from the forehead in a way which to most women would have been trying, yet which to this woman lent an air of eighteenth-century charm and distinction.

There was no colour in Laura Pavely's face, but her eyes, heavy-lidded, and fringed with eyelashes darker than her hair, were deeply blue.

To-night she was wearing a very simple evening dress, a white chiffon tea-gown with a long black lace coat. The under dress was almost high to the throat, but beneath the black lace the wearer's arms, soft, dimpled, and rounded, were bare to the shoulder, and gleamed palely, revealingly.

Mrs. Tropenell wondered whether Laura knew that her arms were unusually lovely; then, for she was a very honest woman, her conscience rebuked her. Laura's faults with regard to men were faults of omission, not of commission. Of course she was aware—she could not help being aware—that she was a singularly attractive and distinguished-looking creature. But she had always taken her own beauty, her own distinction, just as she did the rare, distinctive features of her garden, and the perhaps over-studied charm of her house—as something to be tended and kept beautiful, but also to be guarded from alien indifferent eyes.

Perhaps because in these days every intelligent woman claims to be picturesque and witty—beauty, sheer beauty, is somewhat under the weather. Laura Pavely, to use the current jargon of her day, was not a "success." She was thought to be affected, "deep," prudish, whereas she was simply indifferent to the more commonplace human elements about her.

Her marriage had withdrawn her from the circle of the old friends and neighbours among whom she had been brought up, in a measure because none of them could "do," excepting in a very casual and cursory sense, with Godfrey Pavely. The world of his youth, the little world in and about the country town of Pewsbury, to which he had introduced her as a bride with such exultant complacency, found her not only disagreeably superior, but also dull. Besides, during the early days of her marriage she had been too bewildered by the conditions of her new life, and of her relationship with her husband, to trouble about making new friends, or even new acquaintances.

And so it was that in any intimate sense Mrs. Tropenell was still Laura's only close friend, but the younger woman was rather pathetically aware of how little she really possessed of the older woman's heart, how constantly she was compared, and ever to her detriment, to her dead mother, even how unconscious a rival in the older woman's favour was Laura's own child—merry, cheerful, loving little Alice.

"Aunt Letty? I didn't see you were there."

Laura Pavely had a delightful voice—low, clear, vibrating. It was a voice which sometimes seemed to promise more depth of feeling than its owner ever chose to betray.

As she stooped to kiss Mrs. Tropenell, Laura let herself slide down on to the floor. She knelt there for a moment, and the light gleamed on her fair hair and upturned face. "Alice sent you her love," she said softly, "heaps of love. She's better to-night, though not quite well yet!" And then, as there came a sound of quick footsteps across the hall, she rose, and drew herself up to her full height, with the grace of movement and the absence of flurry which were both so characteristic of her.

Mrs. Tropenell looked up quickly. Had Laura flushed, as she sometimes did flush, with a deep, unbecoming reddening of her pale face, when moved or startled? No, she seemed, if anything, paler, more impassive than usual, and Oliver's mother asked herself, yet again, what of late she had so often asked herself—if Laura was capable of any feeling, any passion, save a feeling of horror, a passion of repugnance, for aught which seemed to smirch her own fastidious physical and spiritual entity.

That she loved her child, the high-spirited, happy-natured little girl, whose presence alone made life sweet and normal at Lawford Chase, Mrs. Tropenell could not doubt—she had had proof of how deeply Laura loved her child on the only occasion danger had come near to Alice—during a bout of some childish ailment, when for a few hours the little creature had been in danger of death. She, the older woman, had been frightened, awed, by Laura's terrible, dry-eyed agony....

Oliver Tropenell opened the door, and as he walked across the room, his mother's heart quivered with jealous pain, and even with a feeling of secret, impotent anger, as she saw the eager, rapt look which lighted up his dark face.

Laura held out her ringless right hand, but he only just touched it. "I'm sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. "As a matter of fact I was reading a letter just come, by the second post, from Gillie."

"I've written to Gillie to-day," Laura said quietly. It seemed such a long, long time since yesterday morning. She felt as if the extraordinary thing which had happened then had been blotted out.

"Have you sent your letter off?"

"No, not yet," she was surprised at the question.

And then there fell a curious silence on those three people, till at last the door opened, and dinner was announced.

"Oliver! Take in Laura," said Mrs. Tropenell.

On the last occasion when the three had dined alone together there had been a little smiling discussion as to the order in which they should go into the dining-room. But that had been many weeks ago. They were not in such a light mood to-night, and yet—and yet, why should they not be? The hostess knew of no reason.

The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother asked herself, for perhaps the thousandth time in the last three months, why she had allowed this—this friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come about? It would have been so easy to arrange that she and her son should spend the summer abroad! When he had first come home there had been a talk of their going away together to Italy, or to France—France, which they had both loved when he was a clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a strength of brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish boots.

But the harm, what harm there was—sometimes she hoped it was not so very much harm after all—had been done quickly. By the end of that first month at home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley.

In those early days—or was it that already he was being unconsciously hypocritical as men are wont to be when in such case as that in which he now found himself?—he had seemed to have formed an even closer friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey Pavely's wife. They had even made a joint business expedition to town together, Godfrey as Oliver's guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which seem equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. But Oliver had at last thrown off, when alone with his mother, any pretence of liking, far less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with the other man he still kept up the sinister fiction. She knew that.

The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped dining-room, and the mother and son talked, Laura saying very little, and never giving, always accepting—in that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after all! Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself to express an opinion, that there was a good deal of thought and of intelligence in her small, beautiful head.

Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, told herself that in a primeval sense such a woman as Laura might well be the complement of such a man as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, enough to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human beings. And he had patience too—patience which is but another name for that self-control in the secret things of passion which often brings men's desires to fruition. It was patience and self-control which had been so lacking in Godfrey Pavely during those early days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil her duty as a wife.

And yet again and again during that uncomfortable half-hour Mrs. Tropenell caught herself wishing that Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting on her right hand. Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself, especially in that house, and when he felt secure of the discretion of those about him, he would often tell much that he ought, in his character of banker, to have left unsaid. He knew the private business of every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took an easy, unaffected interest in it all. It was only when he touched on wider matters, especially on politics, that he grew unbearably tedious and prosy. But then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened to with pleasure on such subjects was her old friend, Lord St. Amant, who always knew what he was talking about, and always salted what he knew with happy flashes of wit and humour.

Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her son's eyes fixed on her face.

There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away—to leave him, alone, with Laura....

Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan't be very long."

It was as if Oliver made but one swift step to the door, and, as he held it open, his mother turned her head away, lest he should see that tears had come into her eyes—tears of pain, and yes, of fear.

How was all this to end?

After walking slowly forward into the square brightly lighted hall she suddenly stayed her steps, and clasped her hands together.

A terrible temptation—terrible, almost unbelievable to such a woman as was Letitia Tropenell—held her in its grip. She longed with a fearful, gasping longing, to go back and listen at the door which had just closed behind her.

So strong was this temptation that she actually visualised herself walking across to a certain corner, turning down the electric light switch, then, in the darkness, creeping to the drawing-room door, and there gently, gently—pushing it open, say half an inch, in order to hear what those two were now saying, the one to the other....

At last, thrusting the temptation from her, she again began walking across the brightly lighted hall, and so, slowly, made her way up the staircase which led to her bedroom.

What Mrs. Tropenell would have heard, had she yielded to that ignoble temptation, would not have told her anything of what she had so longed to know.

After he had shut the door on his mother, Oliver Tropenell walked back to the place where he had stood a moment ago. But he did not come any nearer than he had been before to his guest, and his manner remained exactly what it had been when they had been three, instead of being, as they were now, two, in that dimly lighted room.

Still, both he and Laura, in their secret, hidden selves, were profoundly conscious that Mrs. Tropenell's absence made a great, if an intangible, difference. It was the first time they had been alone that day, for it was the first day for many weeks past that Oliver had not walked over to The Chase, either in the morning or in the afternoon or, as was almost always the case, both after breakfast and about teatime.

At last, when the silence had become almost oppressive, he spoke, with a certain hard directness in his voice.

"In the letter I received from Gillie to-day he tells me that he can easily be spared for a few weeks, and I've already telephoned a cable telling him to start at once. I've said that if he thinks it advisable I myself will leave for Mexico as soon as I hear from him."

"Oh, but I don't want you to do that!" Laura Pavely looked up at him dismayed. "I thought you meant to stay in England right up to Christmas?"

"Yes, so I did, and I feel almost certain that he won't think it necessary for me to go back. But the important thing is Gillie's and your holiday. Why shouldn't he take you and Alice to France or Italy for a month?"

He saw her face, the face in which there had been a certain rigid, suffering gravity, light up, soften, and then become overcast again. Moving a little nearer to the low chair on which she was sitting—"Yes?" he asked, looking down at her. "What is it you wish to say, Laura?"

"Only that Godfrey would never let me go away with Gillie." She spoke in a sad, low voice, but she felt far more at her ease than she had yet felt this evening.

The last time she and Oliver had been alone, they had parted as enemies, but now there was nothing to show that he remembered their interchange of bitter, passionate words.

He answered quietly,

"I wonder why you feel so sure of that? I believe that if it were put to Godfrey in a reasonable way, he could not possibly object to your going abroad with your brother. It's time they made up that foolish old quarrel."

"Ah, if only I could get away with Gillie and my little Alice!"

Laura looked up as she spoke, and Oliver Tropenell was moved, almost unbearably so, by the look which came over her face. Was it the mention of her child, of her brother, or the thought of getting away from Godfrey for a while, which so illumined her lovely, shadowed eyes?

He went on, still speaking in the quiet, measured tones which made her feel as if the scene of yesterday had been an evil dream. "I've even thought of suggesting that Godfrey should come out with me to Mexico, while your little jaunt with Gillie takes place. We could all be back here by Christmas!"

She shook her head. "I'm afraid Godfrey would never go away except in what he considers his regular holiday time."

"Not even if I made it worth his while?"

She looked up, perplexed. And then a wave of hot colour flamed up in her face. Her conscience, in some ways a very delicate and scrupulous conscience, smote her.

Was it her fault that Oliver Tropenell had come so to despise Godfrey?

But he went on, speaking more naturally, that is quickly, eagerly—more like his pre-yesterday self, "No, I'm not joking! I think I can put Godfrey in the way of doing some really good business out there. We've spoken of it more than once—only yesterday afternoon we spoke of it."

"You don't mean with Gillie there?" There was a note of incredulity in Laura's voice.

"No." They were on dangerous ground now. "Not exactly with Gillie there—though it seems to me, Laura, that Godfrey ought to make it up with Gillie."

Slowly, musingly, as if speaking to herself, she said, "If Godfrey ever goes to Mexico I think he would want me to come too—he always does." And this was true, for Godfrey Pavely in some ways was curiously uxorious. Little as they were to one another, Laura's husband never allowed her to go away by herself, or even with her child, for more than a very few days.

"You come too—to Mexico?" There was surprise, doubt, in Oliver Tropenell's voice, and suddenly Laura did a strange thing, imprudent, uncalled-for in the circumstances in which she found herself with this man; yet she did it with no trace of what is ordinarily called coquetry. Lifting up her head, she said rather plaintively, "Surely you wouldn't mind my coming too, Oliver?"

"Does that mean that you've forgiven me?" he asked.

She got up from the low chair where she had been sitting, and, facing him, exclaimed impulsively, "I want us both to forget what happened yesterday! I was wrong, very wrong, in saying what I did about Godfrey," her voice faltered, and slowly she added, "But with you, who seemed to somehow understand everything without being told, I felt, I felt——"

He raised a warning hand, for his ears had caught the sound of light footfalls in the hall. "Mother's coming back," he said abruptly. "Don't say anything to her of my cable to Gillie." And at once, without any change in his voice, he went on: "There's a great deal that would interest you, quite as much as Godfrey, out there——"

The door opened, and he turned round quickly. "I'm trying to persuade Laura to come out to Mexico," he exclaimed. "Godfrey has practically promised to pay me a visit, and I don't see why she shouldn't come too!"

Mrs. Tropenell made no answer. She knew, and she believed that both the people standing there knew as well as she did, that such an expedition could never take place so long as Gilbert Baynton was Oliver's partner. Baynton and Pavely were bitter enemies. There had never been even the semblance of a reconciliation between them.

But as her son bent his eyes on her as if demanding an answer, she forced herself to say lightly: "I expect they both will, some day, and while they are away I can have my dear little Alice!"

When, a little later, Mrs. Tropenell accompanied Laura out into the hall, she said, "Do come in to-morrow or Sunday, my dear. I seem to see so little of you now."

"I will—I will!" and as she kissed the older woman, Laura murmured, "You're so good to me, Aunty Letty—you've always been so very, very good to me!"

Oliver opened wide the door giving into the garden. He was now obviously impatient to get Laura once more alone to himself....

After she went back to her drawing-room, Mrs. Tropenell walked straight across to a window, and there, holding back the heavy curtain, she watched the two figures moving in the bright moonlight across the lawn, towards the beech avenue which would presently engulf them.

What were their real relations the one to the other? Was Laura as blind to the truth as she seemed to be, or was she shamming—as women, God or the devil helping them—so often sham?

Slowly, feeling as if she had suddenly become very, very old, Mrs. Tropenell dropped the curtain, and walking back to her usual place, her usual chair, took up her knitting.