Philip slipped back into the lane, his head whirling. Bewildering, audacious, inexplicable girl! So beautifully friendly and candid, and so intelligent, and so much a woman of the world--a concert-singer! And she took one as one's equal, not as a nice school-boy who was only just putting his nose into the world. Philip was flattered and excited. He sat down against the hedge, and his hand wandered for his handkerchief towards the pocket sewn on his shirt. As he extracted the handkerchief, something crackled. The letter, Channah's letter, with his mother's signature! He had forgotten all about her! Oh, what a hog he was! Probably coughing her chest out on the sofa that very moment! A tiny feeling of revolt against the compelling Mamie entered his heart. Almost forgotten his mother! That would never do! But what eyes she had, smiling and dark and secret, even if she was so charmingly frank on the outside! There was tragedy in those eyes! Yes, he was sure there must be tragedy in her life somewhere. Poor girl! he murmured protectively. By the time he reached Wenton House he had constructed for her a sombre Greek background against which her proud bright spirit shone unyielding. Poor girl! he repeated. But what eyes! he mused finally, what eyes! Next morning no letter arrived. He was furious, chiefly with Channah. "What does she mean by promising me and then letting me down like this! Another of her rotten old actor-heroes; absolutely sloppy about them, she is! I wonder how mother can be! They ought to know how anxious they'd make me not writing after they'd promised! Absolutely filthy, taking the bloom off a chap's holiday, the only holiday I've ever had!" He spilt his coffee with bad temper. Mrs. Kraft stared sourly from her post at the "ladies'" table. Philip rushed out after breakfast to compose a letter of fierce invective. It then occurred to him that if his mother was worse, his letter wouldn't help. He tried to convince himself that she was better and that Channah had therefore not thought the letter worth bothering about. He tore up the letter, but his bad temper increased. The morning passed very dully and he was too sullen to be interested in the munificent substitution of fried for boiled potatoes at dinner. But as the afternoon shadows deepened, his feet took him disconsolately towards the lane where the cow-and-Mamie episode had taken place. In that direction lay, he felt, the only oasis in the ennui of Wenton. An absurdity suddenly struck him. Here was the romantic, the poet, who had once rhapsodized over a blade of grass and shouted for glory at a bird's song, here was he, with strange sweet singers on every branch of unnamed trees, with wild flowers dappling the meadows, scented weeds filling the streamside air, here was he dull and sulky and stupid! What was coming over him? Had the year ended in too feverish a bout of work? But of course it was