On one point I’ve made up my mind. No starting for Sainte Véronique till Susan’s either mended or ended. I’ll wire Dupoirier not to expect us till Monday. Gibson shall take the telegram to the village at once. And, if there’s no change for the better before post-time to-night, I’ll write to Alice and borrow that pale little slip of a French maid of hers for the time I shall be in Sainte Véronique. Alice said something last week about sending her back to France for a change. Perhaps I’ll take Susan too. Or perhaps I’ll let her go to her friends till I come home again. She’s been too good a girl all these years for me to part with her just because of what may be no more than a passing slackness and staleness. Besides, Susan is the only creature I really like to have about me. She is as wholesome and sweet as country cream and rosy-cheeked apples. The word I couldn’t think of has flashed upon me all of a sudden. It’s a simple enough word and an obvious; and it would have come to me at once if I had had the grace to remember sooner that Susan, after all, is a human being. Susan is merely preoccupied. I ought to have divined it hours ago, if I hadn’t been so disgustingly devoted to my own right worshipful ease and comfort. I’ve never thought about it before: but, without doubt, Susan’s cousins and uncles and aunts are as much to Susan as my own cousins and uncles and aunts are to me. Indeed, I hope and expect that they are vastly more. I wonder what is wrong? Is Susan’s cousin going to be married? Or has her aunt joined the Salvation Army? Or has her uncle tumbled off a hayrick? Perhaps it’s something far worse. Anyhow, the poor soul must think me adorably sympathetic when I reward her admirable reticence by shrewing her for every insignificant lapse. And, after the loving fidelity with which she has served me and cherished me so much over and above the best-paid hireling’s duty, she must find me most consolingly grateful. I will make her tell me. Probably it is something wherein I can give a bit of practical help. _Later_. I’ve tackled Susan. She didn’t make it too easy. While she was brushing my hair, I said abruptly, but quite cordially: "By the way, Susan, I sha’n’t go to Sainte Véronique to-night. Gibson’s gone to the village with a telegram. I’ve told Monsieur Dupoirier to meet me on Monday." By peeping through my hair I could see Susan’s face in the glass, although she couldn’t see mine. "Very well, Miss Gertrude," Susan answered. She called me "Miss Gertrude" in precisely the tone she has always used ever since she first came to Traxelby, before Alice was married and when Grandmamma was still alive; and she went on brushing my hair without a pause. But I noticed that her cheeks, reflected in the glass, first paled and then flamed. I flung my hair from my eyes and looked up at Susan without ado.