She woke up delightfully surprised to find herself in her own pretty room, and with no desire for breakfast in bed. Snow had fallen during the night. Looking out of her window, she could see the conventional Christmas landscape. Nature seemed to have tidied everything for the great festival. Upon the previous afternoon Cicely noticed that the gardens had lost something of their trim appearance. Leaves rotted upon the paths and lawns. Rabbits had dared to invade the topiary garden! The snow covered leaves and fallen timber. Presently Lady Selina appeared, scattering crumbs for the friendly robins. Cicely greeted her gaily.

“You slept well, my darling?”

“Like a top.”

“Capital.”

They smiled at each other, Cicely reflecting that tops didn’t really sleep. They spun round and round, just as she had during her vigils, and went into a sort of silly trance. And then they fell flatly down. Cicely had experienced all this and more; so she told the exact truth and pleased her mother at the same time. As a matter of fact, she detested lying, even white-lying. At school, lying, or any form of feminine deceit or guile, had been voted by the leaders of public opinion—bad form. Women, in the past, had been driven to subterfuge by brutal MAN. The New Woman, educated like a public-school boy, must tell the truth, and flaunt it if necessary, like an Oriflamme.

Mother and daughter attended Divine Service. Cicely perceived Dr. Pawley in his pew, but Mr. Grimshaw was conspicuously absent, a fact which distracted Cicely’s thoughts from the Liturgy. The small church was full as usual, although many of the younger men had already joined up, not without some pressure from the parson and the lady of the manor. The more aged and infirm, in receipt of doles, quite understood that regular attendance “paid.” Backsliders were overlooked when Lady Selina offered her “oblations” at the Midsummer and Christmas bun-festivals. Just before Christmas beef-time the attendance was remarkable.

After church Dr. Pawley accounted satisfactorily for the absence of his colleague, who, it seemed, had spent the night with a child suffering horribly from croup.

“He never spares himself, good fellow,” said Pawley. “In this case he insisted on sparing me.”

Lady Selina inclined her head. The thought came to Cicely, to be dismissed as disloyal, that her mother had not seemed too well pleased when listening politely to Dr. Pawley’s praises of his partner. Did she resent the young man’s ever-increasing popularity in the village? Lady Selina strolled back to the Manor, saying nothing. In the old days Dr. Pawley was often invited to luncheon on Sundays. Cicely said presently:

“Are you expecting Dr. Pawley to luncheon, Mums?”

“No. Stimson has enough to do as it is. Besides, it would be difficult to leave out Mr. Grimshaw.”

“But why leave him out?”

Lady Selina shrugged her shoulders, saying carelessly:

“On ne s’entend pas avec tout le monde.”

Cicely felt as if she had been slapped. It was the first time that her mother had deliberately chosen to indicate the social chasm between herself and a G.P. Cicely, off her guard, said indiscreetly:

“Mother!—Mr. Grimshaw is Brian’s friend. I—I don’t understand.”

Lady Selina may have regretted a slip of the tongue. In her softest voice, she replied:

“My dear child, I have been extremely civil to Brian’s friend. But there are—limits! I regard Dr. Pawley as an exception that proves the rule never broken by my dear father, for example.”

“What rule?”

“I dislike dotting my ‘i’s. However ... the rule is quite simply this: Solicitors and doctors, by reason of their callings, which impose upon us, willy-nilly, an intimacy of a peculiarly personal and often unpleasant character, must be received with formal courtesy upon occasion. But the fact that they are paid as attendants, so to speak, justifies us in keeping them at a discreet distance. Your grandfather used to say: ‘How can I enjoy my glass of port when my doctor is watching me drink it, after having strictly forbidden it?’ In the same way, although your friend’s father, Sir Nathaniel Tiddle, may be an exceptionally worthy person, I should not care to sit at table with him, because he is a pill-manufacturer. How white the world is this morning!”

Cicely bit her lips in the effort to keep silence. Also, she realised the fatuity of further argument. It seemed to her monstrous that anybody, particularly a mother, should not want to sit at table with a man who had spent a long, wearisome night in attendance upon a croupy child. She said, with an inflection of acerbity:

“Yes; but I always think of snow as Nature’s whitewash.”

“What an idea!”

“Well, it is my idea. I thought this morning that it covered ever so cleverly the rotten leaves which I smelt yesterday. I can’t smell them now or see them, but they’re there just the same.”

Lady Selina eyed her pensively, murmuring:

“Really, child, your liver must be out of order.”