It was about a week after Mrs. Walbridge's visit to Mrs. Twiss that Griselda went to the play with old Mrs. Wick and her son. Greatly to the girl's astonishment, Mr. Wick turned up two or three days after her decided rejection of him, and his manner had shown nothing of the traditional depression of the refused young man. Indeed, he seemed particularly gay, and had brought her some sweets—sticky balls rolled in wax paper, that he told her were the best sweets on earth.

"My mother made 'em," he said. "She's great at making things. These ones are a sort of nougat. You try one—you'll see——"

The uncouth looking sweetmeats were indeed delicious, and the two young people sat at the top of the stairs leading to the garden (for it was one of those odd, lost summer days that wander along through our island winters like lonely strayed children), and munched and talked, and talked and munched, in as friendly a way, Griselda thought, as if he had never mentioned marriage to her.

"I don't like your frock," he said suddenly, speaking with difficulty, for his mother's sweets were sticky. "You're too dark for blue. Makes you look yellow."

"Well, upon my word!" The girl was full of innocent airs and graces; little affectations blossomed all over her, and perhaps they were only the blossom of future graces. But somehow, this odd reporter person, as she called him to her mother, clutched at these premature flowerets like a black frost, and she found herself being as natural as a little boy with him.

"You are polite," she remarked.

He smiled from ear to ear.

"No, I'm not. I'm very rude, but it's true. You ought to wear green and brown, or yellow or white. Imagine a buttercup dressed in blue serge!"

Everyone likes to talk about himself or herself, so for a moment Grisel enjoyed herself thoroughly, as they gravely discussed the different kinds of flowers that she might be said to resemble. Then he invited her to go to the play, and when she refused demurely, he chuckled with delight.

"Oh, now you think I'm the ignorant young man," he retorted. "You think I don't know that you couldn't go with me alone. (Of course, so far as that's concerned you could—all the smart girls, dukes' and earls' daughters, do)—but I have not invited you to. My mother's coming with us."

"Your mother?"

"Yes. Naturally she's anxious to meet you."

She looked at him innocently, her eyes like black-heart cherries with the sun on them.

"Why should your mother wish to meet me?"

"Oh," he answered. "Don't you realise that I'm an only son?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

He looked at her gravely, his flexible lips steady as iron. "Most mothers want to know the girl their son's going to marry, don't you think?"

Before she could help it, she laughed. "But her sons aren't going to marry me."

"No, but her son is. I am. Oh, yes," he went on before she could speak. "We shan't be married this winter, of course, but in the spring we shall. You may choose a nice month. It'll be a proud day for you, my dear, and jolly lucky you'll be to get me!"

She rose and refused another sweet. "No thanks, we must go in now. I've got a lot to do. My father's not very well, and I may have to go down to Torquay to look after him if he doesn't get better."

"Miss Walbridge," he spoke in a voice that to her was quite new, and when she turned, looking at him over her shoulder, something in the dignity of his face forced her to turn completely round and wait.

"Don't think me a perfect fool," he said. "I can't help teasing you. You—you're so little and so young. What I'd like to do would be to lift you up on my shoulder and run round and round the garden with you, and scare the life out of you, but I daren't do that, so I have to tease you. Besides, you know," he added very gravely, "it is true that I love you, and I mean you to marry me."

Mrs. Walbridge, who was in the dining-room packing some bottles of home-made beef-tea to send to Torquay, could not help overhearing the rest of this conversation. She never forgot it, or the young man's face as he finished speaking to Griselda, who suddenly seemed more responsible, more grown-up than her mother had ever seen her.

"Please don't say anything more about that, Mr. Wick," she said gently. "I like you very much—we all do, even my mother, who's so old-fashioned—but I can't possibly marry you."

The four young eyes stared into each other for what seemed a long time, and then he drew back courteously to let her pass.

"I'll not say anything more about it for three months," he declared. "I promise you that."

Thus the arrangement about going to the play had been made, and when the evening came Mr. Wick drove up in a taxi and carried his prize off to the box at the theatre, where he had already installed his mother.

When Grisel came home she went up to her mother's room, slipping out of her frock and putting on her mother's shabby old dressing-gown, that she declared to be a perfect disgrace, and sat on the foot of the bed describing the adventures of the evening.

"She's a perfect old dear, Mum," the girl declared. "Very large, not exactly fat, you know, but big. Very little hair, brushed quite flat, and done up in a tiny bun at the back, and the most beautiful manners, like some old-fashioned duchess. Like an old duchess in one of your books, Mum—that kind—not like a live one——"

"I see," murmured Mrs. Walbridge. "How did you like the play?"

"Oh, it was very pretty. Mary Grey looked perfectly beautiful. She's such a dear, but I wish she had sung. They liked it awfully, but somehow I never understand Shakespeare's plays—never quite know what they are driving at, I mean. The place was packed, and I saw lots of people I know. The Murchisons were there, and Dickie Scotts, and that awful Pellaby woman, covered with pearls and jewels. Johnny Holden came up just as we were leaving, and told me that he had seen Guy. He's only just back. He said Guy's awfully fit, and has done some very good caricatures. He says there's going to be an armistice as sure as eggs is eggs. The Hun is a dead man according to him. And, oh, Mother, you'll never guess—Oliver Wick went out on the 28th of August, 1914, and was all through the Big Push and the retreat from Mons. Fancy his never telling us! Johnny mentioned it. He was wounded there—during the retreat. One of his fingers is quite stiff. I never noticed it, did you?"

Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, I never did. So he's been out?"

"Yes, and he only had one leave all the time. He was invalided out last year—there's a bullet somewhere inside him still. His mother says she thinks it must be in his brain. She does adore him, Mum."

Mrs. Walbridge was silent, for she envied this other woman, not exactly her son, but her love for her son. Her own boys were very dear to her, but one quality was lacking in her love for them, and that was adoration. For although she was only a fourth-rate novelist, she had the sad gift of unswerving clear-sightedness, and no merciful delusion blinded her when she looked at her own children.

Grisel had stopped brushing her pretty hair, which lay like two wings over her young breast, framing her little quick face, and bringing out its vivid whiteness. She was sitting with the silver brush on her knees, and in her eyes brooded an unusually deep thought.

"You like him, my dear, don't you?"

The girl started. "Who? Oh, Oliver? No—I mean——" She rose and put the brush on the dressing-table.

"How nice that you call him Oliver," commented her mother, in a matter-of-fact voice. "I like him, too. I think he's a delightful young fellow. So boyish, isn't he?"

Grisel came to the bed, her momentary embarrassment scattered to the winds by the sober sense of her mother's words.

"Yes, he's a dear," she said simply, "but his mother's a perfect pet, and she's coming to see us. You'll love her, Mum." At the door she turned. "Good-night, Mum darling. Don't worry about your old book. It's sure to come out all right. What did you say the name of it was?"

"'Lord Effingham.'"

The girl stepped back in surprise at her mother's tone. "Why, good gracious, Mum, you spoke as if he were a real man and you hated him! I hope he isn't one of the modern horrors, like that dreadful man in 'Reek.'" She ran back to the bed and gave her mother a little stroke and shake. "I couldn't dream of allowing you to write horrid modern books about beastly real people," she said protectingly. Then she went to bed.

The next morning a telegram arrived from Torquay, saying that Mr. Walbridge was no better, and asking his wife to come down and look after him. She had expected just such a wire (for he was one of those people who always become ill when they are bored or lonely) and she had already arranged to send Grisel down.

The girl liked Torquay and had two or three friends there, and it would be a pleasant change for her. Besides, her mother thought, if things were going to be really bad, it would be better to have the children out of the way.

So Grisel, much pleased, and not at all worried about her father, went off, and for several days after her departure Mrs. Walbridge worked uninterruptedly in the deserted drawing-room. The weather had changed, and it was intensely stormy and wet, so there was something pleasant in the shut-in feeling of the firelit room.

Paul, now the only one at home, was, of course, at the bank all day, and most evenings he either dined out or went out immediately after dinner. He was a silent man, very preoccupied with his own thoughts and possessed of the negative gift of taking no interest whatever in other people's affairs. He scorned curiosity with all his heart, and never suspected that curiosity is very often only an expression of human interest.

Of late, too, his mother had noticed he had been even more silent and absent-minded than ever, and she wondered if he was having a love affair. She dared not ask him, however, and so the long days and longer evenings passed in almost unending hard work for the little writing woman, and finally she arrived at a certain amount of success with the troublesome "Lord Effingham."

Her book was entirely changed. Such atmosphere as it had ever had she had destroyed, and, very proud of the illegitimate baby she had introduced into its innocent pages, she one night packed up the manuscript and ran out to a greengrocer in the neighbourhood, where lived an old man who sometimes did errands for her.

Old Mr. King was at home, and would be delighted to go round the next morning at half-past nine to take the very valuable parcel safely down to Messrs. Lubbock & Payne.

She thanked the greengrocer's wife, who was the old man's daughter, and, putting up her umbrella, went out again into the wet.

It was a shiny black night, full of storm noises and unceasing rain, and when she reached "Happy House" Mrs. Walbridge stood for a moment under her umbrella, leaning against the little green gate, where the name was now almost illegible, and looked about her, breathing more freely in the thought that the book was done; for good or evil; that she had done her best by it, and that if it failed, it must just fail.

She felt more cheerful now that "Lord Effingham" was off her hands. Things must improve, she thought.

The political news was much better; the armistice might be signed any day, and perhaps when Guy came back he would, after all, be helpful to her.

Ferdie was better. She had had a letter that morning, and little Grisel was having a happy time with her friends. There was to be a dance, and she had written for her new white satin frock to be sent down.

"I must go to Swan & Edgars and get her a new pair of satin slippers," she thought, as she went up the steps, and opened the door with her latchkey. "Fancy the little minx dancing her last pair through the other night!"

She went down into the kitchen and made herself a cup of extra strong cocoa to drink in bed. Cocoa in bed with a book is a very cosy thing.

The boys had always thought her a frump, and Guy in particular hated her old black velvet evening gown, and, now that he had been in Paris and seen all the smart clothes, he would despise the black velvet gown more than ever. If only she could have some kind of a new evening frock. Grey would do. Iron grey would wear almost as well as black. She set down her cup of cocoa with a little sigh. Ridiculous to think about that kind of thing when she only had one hundred and eighty pounds in the bank.

Then she read a few pages of "Thomas À Kempis," turned out her light, and lay still in the dark waiting for sleep.