“You are just the same!” she cried. “You’ve scarcely changed at all.” And then came the inevitable pause. Rose listened to a thrush singing, and to the distant sound of a mowing-machine. She seemed to have been listening quite a long time before Cecily broke in so sharply that her voice was almost like a cry. “Ah no! don’t look at _me_! I’m old and ugly. I’ve changed, haven’t I, Rose?” The question ended in a nervous laugh. CHAPTER II “I’m dying to go into the garden,” said Mrs. Summers. She slipped her arm within Cecily’s, and while she talked volubly, felt its trembling gradually lessen. “Tongue cannot tell what I’ve endured since I landed on Tuesday,” she exclaimed. “The children’s _ayah_ has been ill, relations have incessantly banged at the front door, Mother has had one of her attacks--excitement, you know,--and I’ve been tearing my hair. I daren’t write to tell you when to expect me because I didn’t know from hour to hour when I could get away. At last to-day there was a lull; so, _forbidding_ anything to happen in my absence, I just rushed off to you.” “And the babies?” asked Cecily. “Splendid. They got horribly spoilt on board, and now Mother’s putting the finishing touches.” “And Jack?” “Very fit when I left him, a month ago. But I’m not going to talk babies, nor even husbands. I want to know about _you_.” Cecily shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “You saw me a month before I came into this house; I’ve been here ever since. This is rather a nice seat.” They sat down on a bench under a beech tree, and for all her volubility Rose felt herself nonplussed. She glanced at Cecily, her momentary hesitation as to what to say next indicated by a little furrow between the eyes. Rose Summers was scarcely a pretty, but certainly a striking woman, who, in spite of trying circumstances in the shape of an Eastern climate, looked younger than her thirty-one years. Her figure, of the athletic type, was good; she was exceedingly well dressed, and she wore her clothes with distinction. Her slightly freckled face had a healthy tint, and her eyes--gray, clear, and steady--were beautiful as well as kindly. Their expression was contradicted, to some extent, by the sarcasm indicated in a rather large and certainly humorous mouth. The eyes she turned upon her friend now were troubled, almost incredulous. Her mental picture of the Cecily of five years back had been so vivid that, even with the witness before her, she could not realize the change those years had brought. Cecily was still graceful; nothing could rob her of the beautiful movements which characterized every change of attitude; and as she threw herself back against the cushions in the corner of the bench, for the first time Mrs. Summers recognized the Cecily of the past.