Mrs. Walbridge never told any of her children what it was that made her so suddenly decide, two days after her interview with Oliver Wick, to do as her husband begged her, and give him his freedom, as he invariably called it. Freedom is a prettier word than divorce, and he had a natural instinct for eliminating ugly words from his life, although he had never been very particular about steering clear of the deeds to which the words fitted.

"Very well, Ferdie," she said to him, the Sunday morning when he came to get his clothes and various little belongings. "You shall have it, your freedom. I'll give it to you."

In his muddle-headed gratitude, he nearly kissed her. She drew back, an irrepressible smile twitching at her lips. He was such a goose!

"I think," he said, "you had better get Gaskell-Walker to manage things for you. It—it might be rather awkward for Paul. You see, we can't have her name brought into it"—there was actual reverence in his voice at the words—"and I'll have to take certain steps."

"Oh, I know," she said quietly. "She told us yesterday. Don't have any more in the papers than you can help, will you?" she added, "it's all so horrid."

"Oh, her name won't be mentioned at all—thanks to your kindness," he added, a little grandiloquently.

She looked at him with a queer expression. "I wasn't thinking of her name. I was thinking of ours—yours and mine, and the children's, Ferdinand."

He winced when she called him Ferdinand. It reminded him of some earlier, painful scenes in their life, when she had been unable to pronounce the shorter version of his name.

He rose and walked up and down the ugly room. "I hope you believe," he began, clearing his throat, "that I'm very sorry about all this. Such things are always unpleasant, but I assure you, Violet, that it—it was stronger than I."

"We needn't go into that. Have you enough money to live comfortably till your marriage?"

He nodded. "Oh, yes. I signed my papers with Barclay the day he went away, you know, and have been at the office every day. I—I intend," he went on, groping for words, "to give you half of my salary; that's two hundred and fifty a year, and I thought perhaps if you moved into a smaller house,—there will only be you and Guy then, and he'll soon be earning something—that—that you might manage to get on all right."

She nodded. "Oh, yes, I shall manage." She didn't add that up to this she always had managed to keep, not only herself, but, for the greater part of their married life, him as well.

"I'm sorry about that business of your books," he resumed, with another awkward pause, during which he took a cigarette out of a very beautiful new gold case, which he hurriedly stuffed back into his pocket. "I hope this new one will be a success. I do, really, Violet."

She looked at his nervous, heated face with a queer, incongruous pity that seemed to her almost undignified.

"I'm sure you do, Ferdie," she answered kindly. "There's no reason on earth why you should not wish me well. I certainly wish you every happiness."

He was relieved and grateful at her lack of resentment, but at the same time it piqued him a little. He felt that it was not altogether normal of her to take things quite like this. He looked at her curiously, and her face seemed old, very plain, linked as it was to his memory of Clara Crichell's luscious beauty. He was very sorry for her, not only for being that most contemptible of creatures, an old woman without charm, but also because she was losing him.

They parted in the most friendly way, after he had telephoned for a taxi and laden it with his various boxes and bags.

"Where shall I send your letters?" she asked.

"Oh, you mustn't know where I am," he declared nervously, "or they'll bring in collusion. Gaskell-Walker will do it all for you." He paused on the step, looking up at the house into which, thirty years ago, they had come together, full of hopes and plans, and across his still beautiful, degenerate face there swept a little cloud of sentimental regret. "Life's a queer thing, isn't it?" he murmured, taking off his hat and standing bare-headed.

She nodded. "Yes, it is." Then she added quickly, "Never mind, Ferdie, it's all right. The children will come round after a bit. It's natural they should be annoyed just at first."

"If ever there's anything I can do for you," he added, incongruously, "after this business is over, of course, you'll let me know, won't you?"

He went his way, and she stood looking after him. It was all remarkably odd, but perhaps oddest of all was that he had failed to understand at the end of all these years, how little she could miss him; that it had always been she that had taken care of him, and that therefore that it was he who would miss the prop for the loss of which he was conventionally compassionating her.

For several days after this, nothing at all happened, and the attention of her little world was turned towards Hermione, whose mother-in-law had unexpectedly died, leaving her an attractive, though not very valuable, collection of old jewelry. The inspection and re-designing of these treasures came as a real boon to the whole family.

"I feel as if my mind had been washed again after this nasty business of father's," Maud Twiss declared, after two or three days of excitement. "I think Hermy's wrong to have those opals set that way, but then they're her's and not mine, so it doesn't matter. What a pity the old lady had such a passion for cameos—they don't suit Hermy at all—but I'd give my head for that star sapphire."

It was the 12th of February, and Maud had arrived first of the little group of people invited to dine at "Happy House" in honour of Paul's birthday.

Mrs. Walbridge had not felt much inclined for any festivities, but Paul for some reason insisted on a little party, and the atmosphere being cleared by the progress of the regular proceedings towards the divorce, the others had backed him up. Sir John Barclay was still away, and Moreton Twiss had been obliged to go to an annual Club dinner, but the Wicks were coming, and Paul had added various delicacies to the menu in a way that was so like his father, that his mother was a little saddened by it. Paul too, she knew, would always be able to spend money on things that pleased him, and she foresaw that he would never have a penny for dull details like gas bills or cooks. He even brought in an armful of flowers, and Maud, who had a new tea-gowny garment for the occasion, arranged them for him, in the very vases his father had bought to hold his orchids the night of the Christmas Eve party. It seemed years ago, Mrs. Walbridge thought, and yet it was only about seven weeks.

Grisel had objected strongly to the Wicks being invited. She pretended to be very annoyed with Oliver for what she called his idiotic and underbred behaviour that night when she had come in after the dinner-party.

"He's sure to be tiresome again, mother. His peculiar brand of humour doesn't happen to appeal to me." But when Mrs. Walbridge had suggested to Paul that the Wicks were not absolutely necessary to his birthday party he declared pettishly that there wouldn't be any party if it wasn't for Jenny Wick. She was the best accompanist he had ever had, and an extremely nice girl—not a bit like her cub of a brother.

Grisel might, of course, have dined out, but, like many other families, although they quarrelled with each other, and did not particularly like each other, the Walbridges yet hung together in a helpless, uncongenial kind of way, and always remembered and mildly recognised each other's birthdays.

Grisel came downstairs while Maud was putting the last touches to the red and white roses that had been Paul's choice. The girl had a new frock of black, with heavy gold embroidery, and though very pale and heavy-eyed, her beauty was undeniably growing, as the baby curves left her face and what can only be called the elegance of its bony structure became more apparent. Her jaw-bone was a thing of real beauty, and the likeness of her brow to her mother's was very great.

"Oh, Grisel, what a love of a frock!" Maud cried, kissing her. "Where did you get it?"

"Greville and Ross. Glad you like it."

Maud settled the last Jacquemenot in its place, and put her arm round her sister's waist. "Let's go into the drawing-room," she said. "I'd hate going upstairs. Never, never again shall I have another baby."

"You look beautiful, Maud," the girl assured her earnestly. "It suits you somehow."

"Nonsense! But what's the matter with you, dear? You look tired out."

"Yes, I've been making a fool of myself. Three dances in the last five days."

"When's John coming home?"

They sat down on the uncomfortable sofa under the gilt mirror, and Griselda leant back against a non-existent cushion, and sat up with a little scowl.

"Oh, he will be back in a day or two, thank goodness. Oh, Maud, I have missed him so; you have no idea," she insisted, "how much I have missed him!"

Before her marriage Maud Twiss, who, after all, was nine years older than Grisel, had been rather jealous of her little sister's greater charm and beauty. But since she had been married her feelings had changed and the sisters had grown towards each other a little. Hermione had always been more selfish than Maud, and, besides, she and Grisel had much the same hair and profiles, so the youngest girl had always been inclined to like the eldest one best. They sat there on the sofa discussing things in general, but avoiding two subjects—the divorce and Oliver Wick. Fortunately the Gaskell-Walkers arrived before the Wicks, and shortly after the arrival of Jenny and Oliver, Bruce Collier turned up with a young Frenchman as fifth man.

Everyone had some kind of present for Paul, who accepted them with extreme seriousness and regarded himself—most unusual in a young Englishman—as the legitimate centre of attraction of the evening. Paul had a disconcerting way, for all his disagreeable mannerisms and selfishness, of doing certain things that reminded his mother almost unbearably of his babyhood and little boyhood. And this evening, as he stood, as pleased as possible, at the little table where all his presents were spread out, she wondered if the others were as struck as she was by the incongruity of his manner. Red-headed little Jenny Wick, who stood near her, read her thoughts.

"Isn't he funny," the girl said in an undertone, shaking her fat silk curls and wrinkling up her snow-white but befreckled little nose. "He's just like a baby. I wish I had brought him a rattle."

"They're all like babies," murmured Mrs. Walbridge absently, her eyes fixed on space. "Every one of them."

"Have you heard the news?" the girl asked, mysteriously, drawing her hostess a little to one side, under pretence of looking at a picture near the mantelpiece.

"News! No, what news?" Poor Mrs. Walbridge started, for, at the present crisis in her life, all news seemed to point towards her own domestic trouble.

Jenny looked very wise. "He'll be telling you himself, no doubt, but I don't mind telling you first. It's Oliver."

Mrs. Walbridge looked at young Wick, who was talking, with every appearance of complete happiness, to Hermione, with whom he was very good friends. "What is it?" she asked. "I've not seen him for nearly a fortnight."

"I know. He's been very busy. The fact is he's engaged to be married, and we see hardly anything of him, mother and I."

Mrs. Walbridge felt the ground rock under her feet. How could it be possible that Oliver Wick was engaged when only a few nights ago he had sat before her in the room downstairs shaken to the heart by misery about Grisel? "Are you—are you sure?" she faltered.

Jenny laughed. "Well, I ought to be. We hear nothing but Dorothy from morning till night—that is, whenever we do see him, he talks of nothing else. And isn't it ridiculous, her name's Perkins?"

"Dorothy Perkins! That is a coincidence. I'm sure I hope they'll be very happy. Does your mother like her?" the poor lady murmured, trying to get her bearings.

"Oh, we've never seen her, mother and I. She lives at Chiswick and her mother's an invalid, so she hardly ever leaves her. We've seen her picture, though, and she's lovely."

Dinner was announced at that moment, and Mrs. Walbridge, never as long as she lived, could remember one thing about the meal, except that young Latour, who sat next to her and knew not a word of English, had the most beautiful manners she had ever seen in her life, and really almost made her believe—almost, but not quite—that the few remaining crumbs of her schoolgirl French that she was able to scrape together and offer him, were not only comprehensible but eloquent. He was a very small young man with black hair, so smooth and glossy that it looked like varnish, and a long, long white nose, sensitive nostrils and bright darting eyes like those of an intelligent bird. Bruce Collier, who prided himself on his perfect French, tried at first to translate the conversation of the young man and his hostess to each other, but "Mossioo Latour," as Mrs. Walbridge laboriously called him, waved aside his offered aid with a cigarette-stained, magnanimous hand.

"Mais non, mais non, mÊlez vous de vos affaires, mon cher," he protested, "Nous nous entendons parfaitement bien, n'est-ce pas, Madame Vollbridge?"

And Mrs. Walbridge nodded and said, "Oh ooee." She said "oh ooee" many times, also "Je ne say pas" and "N'est-ce pas." And she loved the young man for his painstaking courtesy. But after a while he drifted naturally into a more amusing dialogue with Hermione, whom he obviously admired very much, and Mrs. Walbridge was left to her confused realisation of the utter perfidy of man. Oliver Wick engaged! She would have been burnt at the stake for her belief in the reality of his love for Griselda; yet there he was, radiantly happy, chattering and joking with everyone in turn, and no doubt, the mother thought, with most unjust and inconsequent anger, the picture of that Dorothy Perkins in his pocket. And she looked at Griselda's over-tired, nervous little face and hated Oliver Wick.

The Wicks, who were spending the night with some friends in the neighbourhood, were the last to leave, for Jenny and Paul (who had sung a great deal and unusually well during the evening) had some new songs to try. So after all the others had gone, the two went to the piano and set to work on seriously trying over some rather difficult music of Ravel and some of the more modern Russians.

Mrs. Walbridge, Grisel, and Oliver sat by the fire, Oliver extremely busy roasting chestnuts, which he offered in turn to his hostesses on an ash-tray. He was squatting in front of the grate, laughing and jesting with every appearance of an almost silly satisfaction with life, and when at last, even Mrs. Walbridge refusing to eat any more burnt chestnuts, he rose with a sigh and sat down between them.

"What a delightful evening," he said. "That's a lovely gown, Grisel. I don't think I ever saw you look better."

"Thanks," she murmured.

"When's Sir John coming back?"

She started and looked at him in surprise; it was the first time that he had mentioned Sir John's name that evening.

"He'll be back the day after to-morrow."

"You must be awfully glad," he said sympathetically.

There was a little pause while the music rose to a loudness greater than was comfortable as a background to conversation. Then he said gently, "I'm sorry I made such a fool of myself the last time I saw you, Grisel. I meant it, you know. I was perfectly serious—puppy love, you know! Heavens, how I must have bored you! Well, it's all over now and I've made my manners. And now," he added with a look of proud shyness in his face, "I've got something to tell you."

"Yes?" Grisel murmured.

"It's this. I—I'm engaged to be married to the sweetest girl in all the world."

The words seemed vaguely familiar to Mrs. Walbridge, and then she realised that she had written them often.

"Her name is Perkins, isn't it?" said Mrs. Walbridge kindly, but with ludicrous effect.

"Mother!" said Grisel sharply.

Wick took a leather case from his pocket. "Here's her picture," he said. "You're the very first people I've shown it to, except my dear old mother and my little sister."

This, too, seemed vaguely familiar to the novelist. Indeed, she had a feeling that none of the conversation was true—that she was writing it in one of her own books.

Grisel took the photograph and held it towards her mother; they looked at it together.

"Oh, she's beautiful!" Mrs. Walbridge cried in amazement.

He nodded. "Isn't she? And this picture isn't half good enough. You see, her colouring is so wonderful!"

"She's lovely," Grisel said slowly, "simply lovely. I think I've seen her somewhere, too."

He took the photograph and gazed at it in dreamy ecstasy.

"If you ever had," he said, "you couldn't possibly forget her." Then he added shyly to Mrs. Walbridge, "Isn't it wonderful that such a girl could ever have looked at a fellow like me?"

Paul's beautiful voice, so utterly unlike himself, rose and fell softly in a charming song of Chausson's about lilacs, and there was a little silence for a minute.

"Mrs. Perkins is an invalid," Oliver went on at last, when he had put the picture away in his left-hand breast pocket, "so my poor girl hardly ever leaves her. She's a most devoted daughter."

"H'm!"

"I beg your pardon?" he asked turning deferentially to Grisel.

"Oh, no—I didn't say anything. Do tell us more about the Perkins family," she said with a grand air.

"About the father and mother? Oh, there isn't much to tell. Except that they have managed to produce Dorothy. The father's a painter—a very bad painter. A charming old man. Looks like William de Morgan; big forehead, you know—white hair. They are very poor, but of course that doesn't matter."

Mrs. Walbridge was beginning to feel more comfortable, and shook her head in unqualified assent.

"Of course it doesn't, as long as you—love each other."

"Ah!" the young man murmured, his voice ringing unmistakably true, "I love the girl all right."

"She'll value your constancy, I should think," Griselda drawled, "ridiculous creature that you are."

He gazed at her humbly.

"You're quite right to laugh at me," he returned, "I did make a perfect fool of myself about you, but, after all, I'm not so very old, you know."

"How can you be sure," she asked, trying to look like a dowager, "that you really do love now? I should think that you'd be a little nervous about it."

The music had ceased, and his sister came forward.

"Come along, Olly, we must be off. It's frightfully late."

She began to roll up her music, and Wick answered Griselda's question.

"I'm perfectly sure," he said gravely, "that I've found my girl—what poets call my mate. And I shall love her till I die."

"I hope you will, I'm sure," put in Mrs. Walbridge warmly, to cover Grisel's unkind air of distance. And when she had let the Wicks out of the door with Paul, she hurried upstairs to reprove her daughter for her unsympathetic manner, but Griselda had gone to bed.