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The next morning she was surprised to find that she had slept well. She did not wake till the night's black curtain had become a blinding tissue of sunshine, and her dreams had all been pleasant ones in which she met old friends. She spent barely a moment wondering where she was, for she had slept in too many beds not to be able to recollect herself quickly. Her only question was the time. She thought at first that she must have wakened early, for though the silence had filled itself with bird song, no sounds came from inside the house. But her watch told her it was past eight o'clock. Lesley had said something about breakfast at nine. No early tea, she supposed, in this house of servants—at least not for the secretary. Never mind. I'll get even with them before I go, even with the lot of them. She felt quite cheerful as she dressed.

Iris had breakfast upstairs, and Rosamund and Lesley were alone together in the little sitting room of the daughter's wing. It was not unpleasant. Neither the post nor the newspapers had arrived yet; but Lesley was talkative and friendly, and they chatted together about Sylvia Dunning and others of their common acquaintance. Rosamund talked about her life with Phil, hoping that it would all be passed on to the right quarter. "Of course it's difficult for a man brought up like he was to realize that we really couldn't afford to go to places like the Savoy. . . . For a man like that, London's only a few streets round Piccadilly—I don't suppose he'd ever heard of the Earls Court Road. . . . That's what made it all so difficult—he did so hate having to live in cheap rooms, right off the map as he called it. Sometimes it did seem a shame that he shouldn't have what he was used to, when he was so ill."