The only regret that Sophy felt for not living part of the time in London was on account of her friendship with Amaldi. It would have been so much easier for her to see him constantly had she been in town. But then Breene was not so far away. He could easily spend a day with her now and then. Susan's presence would make such visits perfectly proper. In his last letter he had said that he would be in England about the end of April. The symphonies that had met with such acclaim in Dresden were now to be given in London.

Sophy looked forward with more and more of that odd mingling of dread and pleasure to seeing him again. She had found the attempt to realise ideals but a tragic business. And the ideal that she had of their friendship was very high.

But from the first day that Amaldi spent with her at Breene, she knew that her doubts had all been unfounded. Their friendship when together again was more perfect than ever, for the slight constraint that she had so often felt underneath his spoken words seemed quite gone. He talked with her now almost as freely as he had written in those letters that she so treasured. And there was something different, also, in his look, his voice, a naturalness, as it were a relaxing of some inner tension.

She did not realise that never before had Amaldi known her as a free woman. Always before she had belonged to some one else. Now she was her own. What she gave him no one else had any right to. The relief and the joy that he had in this knowledge made him seem another man even to himself at this time. It was enough for the time being to realise the inviolateness of all her sanctities. This realisation was so wonderful that it stayed for a while the sharp urge of love, and filled the vacancies of absence with a sense of triumph.

As for the little household—Sue Pickett, Bobby, Harold Grey—they all liked Amaldi heartily. And as other friends, both men and women, often "spent a day" at Breene with Sophy, Miss Pickett had no cause to worry over "appearances," as she had frankly feared that she might have to. Still ... Sue was not quite easy in her heart over the situation. As she had declared, she did believe in friendship between men and women—but not so very much in a friendship between a man and woman as young and attractive as these two.

Then one day something happened to make her really apprehensive. It was about the end of June. Amaldi and Sophy were in the rose-garden. Through an archway in the yew hedge Susan could see them as she sat with her embroidery under one of the big beeches on the lawn. Sophy was cutting roses. As she cut them she laid them in a basket that Amaldi held for her. The sunlight on her thin white gown, and the red and pink and yellow roses that kept tossing into the basket, gave an effect of light-hearted happiness. Sophy's black sash only heightened this impression. It was as though grief had shrunk to the size of a narrow riband.

And as Sue sat there thinking this, she heard the chugging of a motor, and there was Lady Wychcote sweeping round the lawn, all in black from top to toe, the reverse, as it were, of that bright, sun-washed picture framed by the yew hedge.

Susan had not met Lady Wychcote before, but she guessed in an instant who it was. She went forward, her back pringling with the consciousness of the sunny tableau upon which it was turned.

Lady Wychcote was inclined to be gracious. She had heard of Miss Pickett from Sophy of course. So very good of her to take pity on poor Sophy's solitude. And just as she was saying this, she caught sight of the two in the rose garden. Susan knew that she had seen them by the sudden stiffening of her figure, even before she lifted her face-À-main in that direction.

"Who is that with Sophy?" she asked rather abruptly.

"Oh ... an old friend," replied Susan, and the moment the words were uttered she wished them back. They sounded excuse-making somehow. She added quickly: "The Marchese Amaldi."

"Ah?... 'An old friend'?" repeated Lady Wychcote. "I've not met him I think. What did you say the name was?"

"Amaldi.... The Marchese Marco Amaldi...."

"Wait a bit...." said Lady Wychcote. "Though I don't know him, the name seems familiar." She repeated it once or twice: "Amaldi ... Amaldi...." Then she looked quickly at Susan. "Is he by any chance the man whose music has been so much discussed this season?"

"Yes—the same," said Susan.

"Ah ... now I place him. They were talking of him at dinner last night. He has an impossible wife, it seems, that he can't get rid of."

"The Marchese is separated from his wife. There's no divorce in Italy, I believe," said Susan.

"That must seem odd to an American," observed Lady Wychcote in her dryest tone.

Susan resented this tone and the remark, but made no reply.

Her ladyship was again looking towards the garden through her face-À-main.

"He's a very good-looking young man, is he not?" she said at last.

"Yes," assented Susan.

"He comes quite often I suppose?"

Susan looked straight at her.

"What would you call often?" she asked.

"Ah—you're annoyed," said Lady Wychcote coolly; "but the fact is, that a young woman in Sophy's position can't be too careful. In England, among people of our class, there's still a strong feeling against divorce. As an American you could hardly realise how deep-rooted this feeling is. I think it right to tell you of it."

"Thanks," said Susan. She turned towards the rose-garden. "If you will come with me...." she suggested, moving forward as she spoke.

But Lady Wychcote made no move to follow her.

"By the way, do you happen to know where my grandson is?" asked she.

"With his tutor. They've ridden over to Carbeck Castle. A picnic with Lady Towne's children and Mrs. Arundel's little boy. But if you'll follow me, Lady Wychcote, I'll go and tell Sophy that you're here...."

"No. Wait, please," said the other quickly. "I'd like to talk a bit more with you first."

Susan drew forward a wicker chair. Lady Wychcote seated herself, and Susan, following her example, took up her embroidery again. But her fingers felt very nervous. It seemed to her that she had never heard those two in the garden talk and laugh so gaily and incessantly.

"You know Mrs. Arundel, I believe?" now enquired the other, in her chill, brittle voice.

"Yes. She kindly helped me to get this home ready for Sophy."

"You like her?"

The question was a sneer.

"Very much," said Susan rather sharply. She flushed with vexation as she spoke.

Lady Wychcote noticed this flush and divined its cause, but continued with undisturbed composure.

"I'm sorry to seem captious," said she, "but I confess that I'm sorry to hear you say so. In my opinion, Mrs. Arundel is not at all a fitting friend for my daughter-in-law, especially in her present position."

Susan remained silent. She felt too irritated to trust herself.

"I see that you resent what I say," Lady Wychcote took it up again. "But you're probably unaware that Mrs. Arundel's looseness of morals is a matter of common knowledge."

Susan put down her embroidery.

"I don't know anything about that, Lady Wychcote," said she firmly. "I only know that she's been very, very kind to Sophy. I think, if you don't mind, I'll call Sophy now. I'd rather you said these things direct to her."

She rose as she spoke, and went off to the garden before her ladyship could protest.

"Hateful, hateful woman!" thought Susan as she went; "... ready to think evil of every one." But all the same she felt uneasy and perturbed. Suppose that Lady Wychcote should use that acrid tongue of hers in starting gossip about Sophy? But then she would hardly care to do such a thing in regard to the mother of her only grandson! Still—one never knew how such spiteful natures would act. Susan felt thoroughly upset.

She was somewhat reassured by the calmness with which Sophy took the news of her mother-in-law's unexpected visit.

"Motored over?" said she. "Then she must be stopping with the Hiltons. But I thought she wasn't going there until July."

Susan was further relieved to find that Lady Wychcote was very civil indeed to Amaldi. She seemed to find him interesting. They talked together quite a while. When she was leaving, she said to Sophy:

"You must let Robert come to me for a day, while I am with Mary Hilton, Sophy. I shall be there a week longer." Then she turned to Amaldi.

"While you are stopping in the neighbourhood," said she, "it would be very kind of you to come and let me hear a little of the music that every one is talking of, Marchese. My mourning keeps me out of town this year."

Amaldi said that he would be delighted to call on her ladyship, only that he was not stopping in the neighbourhood, and was returning to town that afternoon.

"Ah?" she said, with a look of faint surprise. And this "Ah?" renewed all Susan's uneasiness. To her it seemed so plainly to say: "What! you come all the way from London to call on my daughter-in-law? Then things are even more serious than I thought."

That evening, after Amaldi had gone, she told Sophy bluntly of her misgivings. Sophy was annoyed but not apprehensive.

"She dislikes me, Sue, and she has a bitter tongue—but somehow I don't think she'd go as far as that...."

"Why not?" asked Sue, who was beginning more and more to think that in any matter Lady Wychcote would go just as far as she chose.

"Well ... after all I'm Bobby's mother.... Why should she slander her only grandson's mother? What possible good could it do her?"

"I don't know," Susan said uncertainly. "But somehow I feel afraid of her ... for you...."

"Oh, I've taken care of myself with her ladyship before now!" retorted Sophy lightly.

Susan still brooded.

"I'd be awfully careful, Sophy, child, if I were you."

"How 'careful'—old Mother Misery?" smiled Sophy, slipping an arm about her shoulders.

Susan looked straight at her as she had looked at Lady Wychcote that morning.

"I'd be careful about ... Amaldi," said she bluntly.

Sophy's arm dropped. Rather coldly she said:

"In what way?"

"I think ... perhaps ... yes— I think you'd better not let him come here so often, honey."

Her tone pleaded for indulgence, but was also firm with conviction. Sophy was still rather cold in manner.

"You mean you think I'd better sacrifice a beautiful, harmless friendship to the whim of a sour old woman?" asked she.

Sue didn't retreat.

"I think you'd better not give that 'sour old woman' the least scrimption of cause to gossip about you," she replied.

"You'd have me mould my life on Lady Wychcote's ideas?"

Susan put her hand very lovingly on the dark head.

"Now, lamb ... don't be huffy with your old Sue," she said. "I only want you to be very, very careful how you cross that old tyrant's prejudices.... I've one of the strongest feelings I ever had in my life that you'd regret it."

Sophy looked at her with grey eyes dark and defiant.

"Sue...." she said, "I'll never, never, never give up one atom of my friendship with Marco Amaldi for anybody or anything."

What more could Susan say—at least just then. She went to bed a very disturbed, unhappy woman.

Towards the end of the week Sophy sent Bobby over to the Hiltons' for a day, as she had promised. He returned that evening in quite an agitated state of mind. He rather enjoyed being with his grandmother occasionally. As he told Sophy: "I don't like Granny much—but I almost love her sometimes—when she's telling me 'bout father, and what a great man he would have been if he'd lived—and what jolly things all my grandfathers did for England. I think Granny's something like machinery. You're awful interested in it ... but you don't want to get too near to it."

This evening the cause of his excitement was shown plainly by his remarks to his mother when she went in to "tuck him up."

"I tell you what it is, mother," said he. "It's a awful responsibility for a chap having not to disappoint his mother or his only gran'mother, either of 'em. Now I was just thinkin'—Granny's so set on my bein' a statesman—and you'd like me to be a great writer. Well— I might be both! Dizzy was, you know. Don't you think if I was a great novelist and Prime Minister, both at once, that would be a solution?"

Sophy hugged him and replied with perfect gravity that she thought it would certainly be "a solution."

"Well, I'm glad," sighed Bobby, settling back upon his pillow. "'Cause if you hadn't thought so, I don't think I'd have slept a wink to-night. I'll write Granny first thing to-morrow. She's leaving after lunch. She told me to be sure to tell you so you'd send your letters to her at Dynehurst when you wrote."

But three days later, about six o'clock in the afternoon, a motor from the Hiltons' swept again round the lawn at Breene, and in this motor was Lady Wychcote.

This time, it happened to be Sophy and Amaldi who were sitting out under the big beech. Bobby was there, too. He was leaning with both arms on Amaldi's knee, and looking up eagerly into the young man's face. Amaldi had been telling him some of the adventures of Orlando Furioso.

This time Amaldi had not come down from London for the day, but had also motored over with Olive Arundel from her country place some fifteen miles distant. Susan and Olive were in the house, superintending the hanging of an old print that the latter had brought over for Sophy's writing-room.

Sophy was frankly surprised to see her mother-in-law.

"Why, I thought you were at Dynehurst!" she exclaimed. "Bobby sent you a letter there yesterday."

"No. Mary persuaded me to stop on another week. I came to bring Robert a book I promised him."

"Oh, thank you, Granny!" said the boy. He held up his cheek to be kissed, received the rather forbidding looking volume that she held out, and retired soberly with it. It was called Lives of Noted Statesmen, Condensed. Bobby could not quite make out whether it meant that the lives or the statesmen were condensed. In any case it promised to be but a dull exchange for the adventures of Orlando. And then it was always so much jollier to be told a thing than to read it.

Lady Wychcote said affably to Amaldi:

"I shall flatter myself that if you'd known I was still here you'd have come to play for me while you were in the neighbourhood, Marchese."

"I should have been only too happy," replied he. "Perhaps you will allow me to come to-morrow?"

"What! All the way from London to call on an old woman?— Ah, that's very charming and Italian of you, I must say...."

"I'm stopping with the Arundels just now," said Amaldi. "But I should have been delighted to come from town to play for you." Like Susan, he found something perturbing in Lady Wychcote's manner. He could not define it, but he felt uneasy. There was a something underneath that very affable tone.... He thought her singularly antipatica. Perhaps that was it.... Yes ... it must be that.... She was antipatica.

On this occasion her ladyship did not leave before Amaldi as on her last visit. She remained until he and Olive Arundel had gone. Then she said to Sophy: "By the way—could I have a few minutes alone with you?"

"Of course," said Sophy.

She thought it was to be the usual thing about Bobby's education, which Lady Wychcote did not think sufficiently strenuous and political. But her mother-in-law had quite another matter in mind.

They walked off together down one of the beech avenues, and Lady Wychcote began without preamble.

"My dear Sophy," said she, "you will probably be very angry, but I feel that I must speak. Your friendship with Mrs. Arundel doesn't at all do you justice...."

"Please don't say anything against Olive," put in Sophy quickly.

"Very well. But you know my opinion on that subject already, so after all it isn't necessary. I was thinking of her chiefly just then in connection with the Marchese Amaldi."

Sophy merely looked at her with an inquiring expression.

"I mean that it seems to me doubly unfortunate that he should be such a friend of hers also," continued Lady Wychcote.

"Please explain what you mean by 'doubly unfortunate,'" said Sophy.

"I shall—very frankly. Your position as a divorcÉe is a very difficult one, and I think that your rather intimate friendship with the Marchese will make it still more difficult."

"You are certainly frank," said Sophy, white with anger. "But you must allow me to be the judge of my own conduct."

"The world constitutes itself judge in such cases," retorted her mother-in-law. "Now pray try to take my words as I mean them. I haven't the least desire to pry or meddle. I am merely calling your attention to what others might think if they chanced to come here twice within a week, as I've done, and each time found that young Italian with you. There would be comment—and not kindly comment either, you may be sure of that."

"Oh," exclaimed Sophy, exasperated, "what a low way of thinking most people have!"

"Yes—the average mind is not exalted in its views," assented the other calmly. "That is what I wanted to remind you of."

Sophy stood still and looked into her eyes with a proud look.

"No breath of scandal has ever touched my name," she said.

"I'm quite aware of that, my dear Sophy," replied Lady Wychcote. "My only object was to help you to prevent such a thing from ever happening."

"It's very kind of you, I'm sure," said Sophy, speaking with difficulty.

The older woman answered with considerable amiability:

"No. You don't think it kind of me. And I quite understand that you resent what you think only tiresome meddling on my part. But I meant it well. Believe me or not, as you choose. Of course, as you said, you must be the judge of your own conduct. Only"—she gave her a very shrewd look indeed—"don't forget, pray, in case a ... some ... unpleasantness should occur, that I tried to forewarn you."

Whiter than ever, Sophy said in a low voice:

"I shan't forget."

"Then that is all. I won't annoy you with the subject again."

"Thanks," said Sophy.

They walked back to the house, and Lady Wychcote commented on the charm of the old grounds, and the advantage that it was for Bobby to have such healthful surroundings, but Sophy said nothing whatever.