4 Books by Coningsby Dawson. Coningsby Dawson

love her is an exaggeration. If there's anything the matter, the trouble is not with his heart but with his nerves."

      "Then you really haven't heard? I thought everybody----" She stifled a yawn. "It's the wind against my face. It always makes me sleepy," she apologized. "Since you haven't heard, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you. He's become the sort of skeleton in our family cupboard---- You're still incredulous! That will please mother. She'll be almost happy when she learns that there's at least one person who hasn't been told about it. She thinks that all the world talks of nothing else. As for Daddy, Phyllis was always his favorite and he adores her children. He goes about trying to find some one who'll volunteer to horsewhip Adair. I can't say that I feel that way myself." Her hand stole out and touched his arm caressingly; it seemed as though she were appealing for herself. "We've all either done or are on the verge of doing something foolish that we're sure to regret. It's not a time to be hard on anybody. To-morrow we may stand in need of sympathy ourselves. Horror has shell-shocked every one, civilians as well as fighting-men. The blackness of insecurity----! We're all convalescing." She halted abruptly, biting her lip and peering at him, suddenly aware that she had been confessing herself. When he only looked puzzled, she finished lightly, "So, you see, Tabs, though you'll think me terribly immoral, I keep a soft place in my heart for our skeleton."

      "But you don't tell me anything positive," he complained. "What has Adair done?"

      "Done!" She stared at him. "That's what I have been telling you. He's fallen in love with some one else."

      He was unwilling to believe what he had heard.

      "Some one else! Impossible!---- I'm sorry, Terry; I didn't mean that I doubted your word. You mustn't be offended, but---- I'm picturing Phyllis. At her best she was good and sweet and pretty enough to hold any man. She was such a loyal little pal--only second best to you, Terry. And Adair--he was such a white man, so patient with her and so devoted to the kiddies. I can't see him in the rle of a runaway. And what on earth would he gain by it that he hasn't got already? I don't want to think that what you've told me---- It makes all fidelity seem so contemptibly temporary."

      Terry spoke gently. "Not that. It's infidelity that is temporary. A lot of us are unfaithful for the moment--it's a symptom of our illness. You said something a little while ago about trying to regain one's lost years by violence--that's what he's doing. He's mislaid the knack of happiness with Phyllis; he's trying to recover it with some one else."

      Tabs was still rebelling against the facts. "But he was such a staid old fellow."

      Terry ignored his discursiveness. "I don't think I've done wrong in letting you into our family secrets. You'll be made a part of them as soon as you meet Daddy. When he heard that you were coming to town and that I was going to see you, he said, 'Thank God for that. Taborley will be able to do something.' He has a pathetic belief in you, Tabs. One of the reasons why I was at the station this morning was that I might have the chance to tell you first, before any one else had prejudiced you with bitterness. Daddy wants you to dine with him to-night. He expects you to be the kind of moral policeman who makes the arrest. But it can't be done with morality. I don't think even you could manage to persuade Adair at the present--not with moral arguments, anyhow."

      "Why not?"

      "Because I've seen _her_."

      VI

      It was at this moment that a sound like a pistol-shot occurred. The car commenced to bump. The girl-driver applied the brakes, guided the car to the side of the road and jumped out.

      "Quite like the Front," Terry cried cheerfully; "I expect you feel at home when you hear a noise like that."

      Tabs looked round. He had been too busy talking to notice where they were. To the right, through wind-rumpled, tree-dotted meadows ran the Thames, still intensely silver in the sunshine, but somehow blither and more young than in London. Clouds flew high; everything was riotously spacious. Scattered through the vivid stretch of landscape ivy-covered houses stood squarely in their park-lands. Set down in the level distance, like children's toys, cattle browsed. The quiet greenness had become starred as far as eye could carry with a gentle rain of myriad tinted petals.

      "The car's got a sense of beauty," he laughed; "it chooses carefully when it wants to break down."

      "And it's all at the Government's expense," Terry smiled, glancing back at him across her shoulder as she scrambled out. "So it's a back tire. How long will it take to put right, Prentys?---- Then we may as well walk and let you overtake us. I don't think we're more than a mile from Old Windsor. We'll get something to eat at the little inn by the riverside. You remember the one I mean? We've been there several times when the General was with us."

      "What General is that?" Tabs asked as they trudged along between the hedges.

      "The General who lent me the car," she replied.

      "Oh, your friend at the War Office! I suppose he's one of the dug-outs who's been there all the time."

      "He isn't. He rose from the ranks. He's only been at a desk job since the Armistice." She spoke defensively, with a certain resentment. Tabs was quick to detect the sharpness in her voice. "I'm sorry," he apologized; "I didn't mean anything unkind."

      She halted with a sudden gesture of concern. "I _am_ inconsiderate. I never thought of it. Won't this walking wear you out?"

      "She's changing the subject," he told himself. "I wonder why?" Aloud he said, "Not a bit. But I can't stride along the way we used in the old days."

      Branching off to the right, they came down to a little inn by the water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in places, so that some of the panes were on the point of falling out. Nevertheless, it had a brave look of carrying on triumphantly, for tulips and crocuses were springing neat as ever from the turf and it was over-hung by a green mist of trees just coming into leafage. They entered and took their seats at a table from which they could watch the pale flowing of the river through the spangled peace of the outside world.

      "It was lucky we broke down." Terry sat watching him with her square little face cushioned in her hands. "You see I'm training myself to believe," she explained, "that everything happens for the best."

      "A comforting philosophy for the lazy," he smiled. "It lets us all out of resisting temptation. Why resist anything, if everything happens for the best? If it were true, it would give us the license to be as flabby as we liked--which rather falls in line with what we were saying about Adair. But who is she--this woman? You say you've seen her."

      "You'll know soon enough for your peace of mind--probably you'll see her yourself before the day is out."

      "But can't you even tell me her name?"

      "Her name's Maisie Lockwood for the present."

      "For the present! Why for the present?"

      "Because one's never certain about Maisie. She was Maisie Gervis once and Maisie Pollock before that; there must have been a time when she was Maisie Something Else."

      Tabs couldn't quite make up his mind whether he ought to laugh or frown. The suspicion had crossed his mind that this composed imp of a girl, who could look so immensely the young lady when she liked, was playing a sly game with him. However he pretended to take her seriously. "In most social sets names are fairly permanent."

      Terry laughed outright and looked away from him, following the river with her eyes. "There's nothing permanent about Maisie. I think that's her attraction; that's what makes people forgive her everything. She starts each day afresh--it really is a new day for her, with no old hates or griefs or dreads to drag her down. She has no regrets because she remembers nothing. Whatever happened yesterday she puts out of mind; she forgets everything except her willingness to be friends."

      "Her