"But, darling—oh, don't go on like this! Can't you see that if I go I can clear up everything in half an hour? It's much the best!"

Joan's manner was stony and impregnable. She stared straight before her.

"I don't mind being left quite, quite alone," was her reply.

"But I shall be back again on Wednesday, foolish child, and I'll wire you everything immediately if it costs me the whole of my quarter's pocket-money. Anything's better than this!"

"Just as you like," came the expressionless response.

Not finding her on the shore, Mollie had climbed the precipitous zigzag path to the cliff-top again and had sat down to rest, fairly blown. Then she had seen her a quarter of a mile away, sitting motionless on a rounded sky-line over which a hawthorn hedge straggled. The children were stolidly watching her, and she as stolidly was watching nothing. The boughs under which she sat were a custard of white bloom, and white was the sun-flecked sweater in the shadow of them, and white as snow the battlemented clouds overhead. Her eyes were dry and quite consciously enduring, and Mollie was alternately comforting and scolding her.

"I shall catch the midday train, and I shall be back on Wednesday," she repeated firmly. "If the mountain won't come to Mahomet or whatever it is, very well. And do try to be a little cheerful, darling. I heard you last night. That does no good."

"I know you haven't had a letter this morning, either," came the dull voice.

"I haven't from Philip, but I have from Audrey. She sends her love. Of course, she knows about Chummy, and it's quite all right."

"But you won't show me the letter," Joan replied, steadfast in her misery. "I know you won't. Nobody shows me anything. I saw him fall—I was the only one who did—but nobody tells me anything."

"You shall hear every word the moment I get there."

"I saw him fall," Joan repeated obstinately. "You were all indoors, but I was in the garden. But of course I didn't know who it was——"

"Don't, darling—just to please me," Mollie begged, distracted.

"He fell like a stone, crash into the tree. You can't realize that. You haven't been up. I have. I know what it's like."

"But you've had a letter from him!" Mollie protested. "Really you talk as if he was killed!"

"I don't know where the letter came from, and I can't write to him, except to the Aiglon Company, which I've done, and there's no reply, and somebody else had to address the envelope for him. I ought to go, not you. I saw him fall."

To Mollie's touch on her shoulder she was quite unresponsive. Mollie could have shaken her. It might have been the best thing to do.

"Do run away, you boys!" she said crossly instead. "Go and pick some of those blue flowers; Auntie Joan's a little tired. Now, Joan, I'll tell you what I'll do if you're good, but not unless. He's in a hospital or a nursing-home, I expect, and I shall go straight to him; and then if he's fit to move, as I expect he is by this time, I shall bring him straight down here. Will that do?"

"I know he's not fit to move. I saw him fall. I saw him falling all last night."

"Now you're naughty and just trying to make the worst of it. That's simply willful. It's like Alan when he wants smacking; when you're as old as I am you'll look on the bright side and be thankful it's no worse. Now do try. I'm going to bring him down here, and we'll keep him for a month. A whole month—it will be lovely! Why, you've only seen him in London and Richmond Park!"

"I've been to Chalfont Woods with him four times."

Mollie seized gratefully on the diversion.

"Joan! How could you! You never told me that!" she scolded. "And you never told me you'd been flying with him either! Philip would be furious if he knew! And now I'll tell him, and about Chalfont too, and all those other times as well, if you don't try to be reasonable. A month in this lovely place with him, and nobody to interfere—why, you'll be glad he had a little bit of an accident!... Now get up and we'll all go back. You'll have to get dinner ready, and I shall want a few sandwiches. Alan! Jimmy! We're not going to the shore. You can play on the see-saw instead. Run ahead, boys—and you come along, darling——"

And Joan of the cinemas and cliffs, of the secluded tea-shops and the noble Santon shore, rose, still as naughty and obstinate as ever, but obediently. Already Mollie, bustling the children on ahead, was shaping in her mind the dressing-down she intended to give Philip that very night.