she felt an amused affection; she was interested in the unfortunate
Charles. She felt her life widening pleasantly and, as she crunched
again down the gravel drive, the orchids in her hand, she felt a
disinclination to go home. She wanted to walk under the great trees
which, spread with brilliant green, made a long avenue on the other
side of the road; to wander beyond them, where a belt of grass led to
a wild shrubbery overlooking the gorge at its lowest point.

Here there were unexpected little paths running out to promontories of
the cliff and, at a sudden turn, she would find herself in what looked
almost like danger. Below her the rock was at an angle to harbour
hawthorn trees all in bud, blazing gorse bushes, bracken stiffly
uncurling itself and many kinds of grasses, but there were nearly two
hundred feet between her and the river, now at flood, and she felt
that this was something of an adventure. She followed each little path
in turn, half fearfully, for she was used to a policeman at every
corner; but she met no tramp, saw no suspicious-looking character and,
finding a seat under a hawthorn tree at a little distance from the
cliff's edge, she sat down and put the orchids beside her.

It was part of the strange change in her fortune that she should
actually be handling such rare flowers. She had seen them in florists'
windows insolently putting out their tongues at people like herself
who rudely stared, and now she was touching them and they looked quite
polite, and she thought, with the bitterness which, bred of her
experiences, constantly rose up in the midst of pleasures, 'It's
because they know I have three thousand pounds and six pairs of silk
stockings.'

Then she noticed that one of the flowers was missing, a little one of