little kink in her brow were extraordinarily familiar to me. But

she had either been prepared by Altiora or she remembered my name.

"We met," she said, "while my step-father was alive-at Misterton.

You came to see us"; and instantly I recalled the sunshine between

the apple blossom and a slender pale blue girlish shape among the

daffodils, like something that had sprung from a bulb itself. I

recalled at once that I had found her very interesting, though I did

not clearly remember how it was she had interested me.

Other guests arrived-it was one of Altiora's boldly blended

mixtures of people with ideas and people with influence or money who

might perhaps be expected to resonate to them. Bailey came down

late with an air of hurry, and was introduced to Margaret and said

absolutely nothing to her-there being no information either to

receive or impart and nothing to do-but stood snatching his left

cheek until I rescued him and her, and left him free to congratulate

the new Lady Snape on her husband's K. C. B.

I took Margaret down. We achieved no feats of mutual expression,

except that it was abundantly clear we were both very pleased and

interested to meet again, and that we had both kept memories of each

other. We made that Misterton tea-party and the subsequent

marriages of my cousins and the world of Burslem generally, matter

for quite an agreeable conversation until at last Altiora, following

her invariable custom, called me by name imperatively out of our

duologue. "Mr. Remington," she said, "we want your opinion-" in

her entirely characteristic effort to get all the threads of

conversation into her own hands for the climax that always wound up

her dinners. How the other women used to hate those concluding

raids of hers! I forget most of the other people at that dinner,

nor can I recall what the crowning rally was about. It didn't in

any way join on to my impression of Margaret.

In the drawing-room of the matting floor I rejoined her, with

Altiora's manifest connivance, and in the interval I had been

thinking of our former meeting.

"Do you find London," I asked, "give you more opportunity for doing

things and learning things than Burslem?"

She showed at once she appreciated my allusion to her former

confidences. "I was very discontented then," she said and paused.

"I've really only been in London for a few months. It's so

different. In Burslem, life seems all business and getting-without

any reason. One went on and it didn't seem to mean anything. At

least anything that mattered… London seems to be so full of

meanings-all mixed up together."

She knitted her brows over her words and smiled appealingly at the

end as if for consideration for her inadequate expression,

appealingly and almost humorously.

I looked understandingly at her. "We have all," I agreed, "to come

to London."

"One sees so much distress," she added, as if she felt she had

completely omitted something, and needed a codicil.

"What are you doing in London?"

"I'mthinking of studying. Some social question. I thought perhaps

I might go and study social conditions as Mrs. Bailey did, go

perhaps as a work-girl or see the reality of living in, but Mrs.

Bailey thought perhaps it wasn't quite my work."

"Are you studying?"

"I'm going to a good many lectures, and perhaps I shall take up a

regular course at the Westminster School of Politics and Sociology.

But Mrs. Bailey doesn't seem to believe very much in that either."

Her faintly whimsical smile returned. "I seem rather indefinite,"

she apologised, "but one does not want to get entangled in things

one can't do. One-one has so many advantages, one's life seems to

be such a trust and such a responsibility-"

She stopped.

"A man gets driven into work," I said.

"It must be splendid to be Mrs. Bailey," she replied with a glance

of envious admiration across the room.

"SHE has no doubts, anyhow," I remarked.

"She HAD," said Margaret with the pride of one who has received

great confidences.

6

"You've met before?" said Altiora, a day or so later.

I explained when.

"You find her interesting?"

I saw in a flash that Altiora meant to marry me to Margaret.

Her intention became much clearer as the year developed. Altiora

was systematic even in matters that evade system. I was to marry

Margaret, and freed from the need of making an income I was to come

into politics-as an exponent of Baileyism. She put it down with

the other excellent and advantageous things that should occupy her

summer holiday. It was her pride and glory to put things down and

plan them out in detail beforehand, and I'm not quite sure that she

did not even mark off the day upon which the engagement was to be

declared. If she did, I disappointed her. We didn't come to an

engagement, in spite of the broadest hints and the glaring

obviousness of everything, that summer.

Every summer the Baileys went out of London to some house they hired

or borrowed, leaving their secretaries toiling behind, and they went

on working hard in the mornings and evenings and taking exercise in

the open air in the afternoon. They cycled assiduously and went for

long walks at a trot, and raided and studied (and incidentally

explained themselves to) any social "types" that lived in the