"Of course I didn't. Is it to-morrow you've got to go up to
Town, Jill?"

"Yes, Boy. Are you going up, too?"

"Must. I'll give you lunch at the Berkeley if you like, dear."

Jill came across and laid her cheek against mine.

"I always like Boy, because he's grateful," she said gently.


Three days later our fellow-mummers began to arrive. A deep
melancholy had settled upon me. I cursed the play, I cursed the
players, I cursed my part, and most of all I cursed the day which
had seen me cast for Buckingham. Whenever I picked up the book,
I saw my queen, Alice, standing there by the fallen tree or
sitting looking up at me as I bent over her chair in the parlour
of 'The Old Drum'. And now her place was to be taken, usurped by
another- a Miss Tanyon- whom I hated terribly, though I didn't
know her, and the very idea of whom was enough to kill any
dramatic instinct I once seemed to possess. Whenever I
remembered my promise to Alice, I writhed. So odious are
comparisons.

When Daphne announced that the wretched woman was coming by the
five-fourteen, and that she should go with the car to meet her,
and added that I had better come, too, I refused point-blank.

"I don't know what's the matter with you," said my sister.