She stared out of the window. It was a large bow window, with a window-seat cushioned in flowered chintz. Couch, curtains, and easy-chairs reproduced this Enchanted Garden effect, forming a paradisiacal background for her intensely modern and somewhat neurotic prettiness. I had seen her sit by the half-hour like this, gazing over the shrubberies, lawns, and waves, with a yearning in her eyes like that of some twentieth-century Blessed Damozel. It was her unhappy hour of the day. Between getting up at nine or ten and descending languidly to lunch, life was always a great load to her. It pressed on one too weak to bear its weight and yet too conscientious to throw it off, though, as a matter of fact, this melancholy was only the reaction of her nerves from the mild excitements of the night before. I was generally with her during some portion of this forenoon time, reading her notes and answering them, speaking for her at the telephone, or keeping her company and listening to her confidences while she nibbled without appetite at a bit of toast and sipped her tea. To put matters on the common footing I said: "Is there anything you'd like me to do, Mrs. Rossiter?" She ignored this question, murmuring in a way she had, through half-closed lips, as if mere speech was more than she was equal to: "And just when we were getting on so well--and the way Gladys adores you--" "And the way I adore Gladys." "Oh, well, you don't spoil the child, like that Miss Phips. I suppose it's your sensible English bringing up." "Not English," I interrupted. "Canadian then. It's almost the same thing." She went on without transition of tone: "Mr. Millinger was there again last night. He was on my left. I do wish they wouldn't keep putting him next to me. It makes everything look so pointed--especially with Harry Scott glowering at me from the other end of the table. He hardly spoke to Daisy Burke, whom he'd taken in. I must say she was a fright. And Mr. Millinger so imprudent! I'm really terrified that Jim will hear gossip when he comes down from New York--or notice something." There was the slightest dropping of the soft fluting voice as she continued: "I've never pretended to love Jim Rossiter more than any man I've ever seen. That was one of papa's matches. He's a born match-maker, you know, just as he's a born everything else. I suppose you didn't think of that. But since I am Jim's wife--" As I was the confidante of what she called her affairs--a rôle for which I was qualified by residence in British garrison towns--I interposed diplomatically, "But so long as Mr. Millinger hasn't said anything, not any more than Mr. Scott--"