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When Mary had slipped off her travelling dress, and wrapped in a Mandarin's coat of black and rose and gold, had let Gisèle unpin her hair, she sent the girl away.

"Je prendrai mon bain à sept heures—vous reviendrez."

She leaned back in her armchair, her delicate bare ankles crossed, her feet in their brocade mules resting on the fender, and gazed into the fire. Jenny moved about the room for a few moments, looking at brushes and boxes and jars. She had always been more Mary's friend than Doris, whose attitude had that peculiar savour of the elder, unmarried sister towards the younger married one. But Jenny with Mary was not the same as Jenny with Gervase—her youth easily took colour from its surroundings, and with Mary she was less frank, more hushed, more unquiet. When she had done looking at her things, she came and sat down opposite her on the other side of the fire.

"Well—how's life?" asked Mary.

"Oh, pretty dull."

"What, no excitements? How's Jim?"

"Oh, just the same as usual. He hangs about, but he knows it's no good, and so do I—and he knows that I know it's no good, and I know that he knows that I know—" and Jenny laughed wryly.