Olive Ilden was detained and surrendered her mid July sailing. Her brother died. This did not grieve her; they had been on strained terms. But she was unwilling to offend his daughters. Offence had grown hateful with years. The personal matter flung to and fro among critics wearied her. It wasn’t amusing to hear that an elderly novelist was “a doddering relic of the Victorian era.” She envisaged the man’s pain. Thus, she bore the formalities of her brother’s passing and so missed three liners. About her, London recaptured something of its tireless motion. She wished for Margot and the youth Margot had kept parading through the quiet house. She hoped that the girl’s frankness never shocked Mark and puzzled again over the rise of that frankness. In her first two English years the child had been sedate, almost solemn, reading a great deal and talking primly. Then her conversation had risen to a rattle. It must be rattling mightily in New York which Olive still fancied a place of cheerful freedom. Letters recorded the change from Fayettesville to a cottage on the Long Island shore: “Cottage was frightful but dad behaved quite as if he was mounting a play in a hurry. We drove from shop to shop and all the stuff came roaring along in motor trucks. I went to Southampton and camped with a rather nice woman, Mrs. Corliss Stannard, who picked me up coming across. It was dull as Westminster Abbey as every one kept cursing the Prohibition amendment. But dad had the cottage--(fourteen rooms and four baths)--all decorated by the time I got back. Some decentish friends of Gurdy live near here. The men are all Goths and the women are fearfully stiff but a broker proposed last night at a dance and I felt rather silly, as he has just been divorced two days and I hardly knew his name. But dad has bought an option to ‘Todgers Intrudes.’” Then, “Dad very busy in town. The actors are threatening a strike. Gurdy pretends that he does not like ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ For a man who did a smart school and who knows his way about Gurdy is rather heavy. Rather decent lunch today. Dad brought down one of the other managers who talks through his nose and is a duck. He taught me how to do a soft shoe step.” And later, “Dad very émotionné about a tragedy he is putting on in the autumn. It is rather thrilling. He means to open The Walling with it. Gurdy does not fancy ‘Todgers Intrudes.’ He thinks himself a Bolshevik or something and I dare say the county family business in it annoys him.” Immediately after this, while the letter was fresh in mind Olive met Ronald Dufford on Regent Street. He took her congratulations on the American sale of his play with a dubious air, swung his stick and said, “Thanks. Fancy Margot made her guv’nor take it on. Between ourselves it hasn’t more than just paid. You’re going to the States, aren’t you?”