A telegram on the hall stand, however, contented her. Clare was sorry; Clare was delayed; would be away another four days; was writing. Alwynne shook off her black dog, and the meeting with Clare still delightfully ahead of her, was able to devote herself altogether to Elsbeth. Elsbeth spent a gay four days with an Alwynne grown rosy and cheerful, affectionate and satisfyingly garrulous again; found it very pleasant to have Alwynne to herself, her own property, even for four days. Elsbeth might know that she was second fiddle still, but though it cost her something to realise that she could never be first fiddle again, she could be content to give place to Roger Lumsden. She shook her head over her inconsistency. She could school herself, rather than lose the girl's confidence, to accept Clare Hartill as the main theme of Alwynne's conversation, till she was weary of the name, but she could not hear enough of Roger. All that Alwynne let fall of incident, description, or approval--Roger, Elsbeth discovered, had, in common with Clare, no faults whatever--she stored up to compare, when Alwynne had gone to bed, with letters, half-a-dozen by this time, that she kept locked up, with certain other, older letters, in the absurd little secret drawer of her desk. And she would patter across into Alwynne's room at last, to tuck in a sheet or twitch back a coverlet or merely to pretend to herself that Alwynne was a baby still, and so, with a smile and a sigh, to her own room, to make her plain toilet and to say her selfless prayers to God and her counterpane. Happy days and nights--four happy days and nights for Elsbeth. Then Clare came back. It was natural that Alwynne should meet her and go home with her, portmanteau in hand, to spend a night or two.... Elsbeth agreed that it was natural.... Three nights or even four.... But when a week passed, with no sign from Alwynne but a meagre, apologetic postcard, Elsbeth thought that she had good cause for anger. Not, of course, with Alwynne ... never, be it understood, with Alwynne ... but most certainly with Clare Hartill. Alwynne was so fatally good-natured.... Clare, she supposed, had kept the child by a great show of needing her help.... Of course, school was beginning, had begun already.... Clare would find Alwynne useful enough.... No doubt it was pleasant to have some one at her beck and call again in these busy first days of term.... Possibly--probably--oh, she conceded the "probably"--Clare had missed Alwynne badly.... Had not Elsbeth, too, missed Alwynne? But she answered Alwynne's postcard affectionately as usual. If Alwynne were happier with Clare, Elsbeth would given no hint of loneliness. A hint, she knew, would suffice. Alwynne had a sense of duty. But she wanted free-will offering from Alwynne, not tribute.