She called him ‘dear’ and took him for walks, and asked him to fasten her bracelets for her. She used strong scent. She got at his newspaper before he came down and told him all the news before he had time to read it for himself. He was politely conversational for the two first mornings, but by the third he was reduced to the acquiescive monosyllable which always meant, always had meant, as Mrs. Cloud or Laura could have told the woman, that he did not wish to be importuned. But Coral greeted the indication with a crow of laughter and told him that he did her good. He reminded her so of his brother. “Never saw such a likeness. It might be Johnnie himself—just like Johnnie after a night out. Grunts was all you could ever get out of Johnnie then—poor Johnnie!” And so, with the easy emotion of the profession, mopped her eyes with an imitation Brussels lace handkerchief in memory of Johnnie. Justin looked round him with an almost passionate longing for Laura. But Laura, of course, was never at the Priory for breakfast. Gentle Mrs. Cloud was unaccountably indifferent to Coral’s glaring misdemeanours. Mrs. Cloud, with her grandson on her knee, could forgive Coral her clothes and her manners, and—which was more—her matrimonial audacity itself: could listen with a kind of sorrowful content to the semi-cockney voice telling stories, the suitable stories—Coral was no fool—of poor Johnnie. Coral had been good to Johnnie and it had not been easy to be good to Johnnie: that appeared more clearly than Coral, so carefully no fool, could dream, or than Justin and Laura realized; though they, too, were alert, intent on shielding Mrs. Cloud from crudities. But Mrs. Cloud listened, and learned all that she was not meant to know, and was kind to Coral, and with that strange reticence of hers never said aloud: “But if he had written, if he had only written, to his own mother!” but instead, with her soft smile— “I am glad he had you, my dear.” “If I’d known——” began Coral once, and stopped herself. She intended saying that if she had known what a Mrs. Cloud could be she would have sent her husband to his home long ago. But she realized that even Mrs. Cloud would not bear the suggestion of her son returning to her by another woman’s good leave. And she had fallen in love, as every one fell in love, with quiet Mrs. Cloud. But behold Coral now, the daughter-in-law, the wife picked up in the far country, installed at Brackenhurst and on her best behaviour; but dying for some one to talk to! Of course there was Laura. There was always Laura. Justin interposed Laura between himself and his sister-in-law, much as you hold an umbrella slant-wise between you and the wind.