Justin’s next leave was nominally due in June. In September he began to be hopeful of getting it: his Christmas epistles were models of linguistic control: and he arrived soon after New Year to laugh at his sympathetically indignant household for taking any notice of anything he might have said in a letter: and, sobering, to be angry with his mother for waiting at home for him instead of going to Bournemouth like a sensible woman till the raids and the fogs were over. He could have wired! She could have got back in half a day: or he could have gone down to her, even if it were jollier, in a way, to spend his leave at home. Laura ought to have packed her off long ago, instead of letting her sit day after day on that windy hill-top catching influenza! But Mrs. Cloud, sitting up in bed and coughing between her smiles, would not have Laura blamed. She did not know what she and Timothy should have done without Laura—and would Laura run down once again, dear, to see that Mary understands about an early lunch? “And now, my son, let me look at you——” Laura slipped away. It was a dreamlike week. It was so utterly incredible to her that circumstances should have once more established her at the Priory, that she could confront the situation with comparative calmness, could even put aside her human prerogative of saying suspiciously to happiness, “Yesterday you were not! Tomorrow, where will you be?” and bask as complacently as a cat or a flower in the spell of sunshine. But she could not believe it to be real. For she found herself sitting down to meals with Justin, catching scraps of his talk with his mother, making no bones about sending him out of the room when she thought Mrs. Cloud had had enough excitement, finding him ten minutes later, when she had pulled the blind and settled Mrs. Cloud for a nap and had come downstairs again, tapping the barometer, raking the bookshelves or lounging by the fire, abstractedly admiring the set of his puttees, bored by the weather, very ready to talk to her. That, you see, was what amazed her. She could understand his acceptance of her, with reserve, as a necessary evil while his mother was ill; but—he was ready to talk to her! He was himself with her, unembarrassed, friendly, apparently unconscious that he had a right to be otherwise. It was unbelievably generous. It was in every way too good to be true. She could not understand it in the least. It was the most astonishing thing that had ever happened. It took her just five minutes to become entirely accustomed to it. Yet she found that in his talk he was gradually and unwittingly explaining himself to her. He was on a holiday: he wanted to be happy. He was unconsciously doing what she was doing consciously. He was trying to put aside all that could spoil his respite.