Winnie threw herself into his arms, and looked up at him, her eyes streaming with tears. "Dear General, she sees nothing or she sees God. Why are we to be afraid?" CHAPTER XXVII A PHILOSOPHICAL PROJECT Mrs. Lenoir did not, as the phrase runs, "do as much for" Winnie Maxon as she had been prepared to do for the prospective Mrs. Bertie Merriam. Perhaps because, though she had accepted the decision, her disappointment over the issue persisted. Perhaps merely because, as matters now stood, her bounty would not go in the end to benefit her old friend's stock. After providing an annuity for her precious Emily, and bequeathing a few personal relics to the General, she left to Winnie the furniture of her flat and fifteen hundred pounds. The residue which was at her disposition she gave--it may be with a parting kick at respectability; it may be because she thought he would enjoy it most--to her favourite, and the least meritorious, of the General's sons--the one who went in for too much polo and private theatricals in India. "There's no immediate need for you to hurry out of here," the General added; he was the executor. "The rent must be paid till the summer anyhow, and Clara told me that she wished you to stay till then if you liked. I've no doubt Emily will stay with you." "It was very kind of her, but I can't afford to live here long." "Oh, well, just while you look about you, anyhow. And if there's anything I can do for you, you won't hesitate to let me know, will you?" Winnie promised to call upon his services if she required them, but again the feeling came over her that, however kind and obliging he might be, the General did in his heart--even if unwillingly--regard their connexion with one another as over. The bond which Mrs. Lenoir had made was broken; that other and closer bond had never come into existence. It would have been unjust to say that the General was washing his hands of her. It was merely a recognition of facts to admit that fate--the course of events--was performing the operation for him. They had no longer any purchase on one another's lives, any common interest to unite them. His only surviving concern now was in his three sons, and it had been irrevocably decided that there Winnie was not to count.