"You look a real Mother Christmas hidden behind parcels. What are they all? Trophies? You _have_ come off well! It is lovely to see you back. If you'd stayed away the whole time I think I should have grown dumb. My tongue would have withered from sheer lack of use. I never realised before how much I love to talk. I do hope you feel sociable. I want to talk and talk for hours at a time, and to hear _you_ talk, too." "Even to grumble?" Claire grinned eloquently. "Oh, well--if you _must_, but it would be rather mean, wouldn't it, after a holiday, and when I've got everything so nice? I am driven to praise myself, because _you_ take no notice." "You have given me no time. You chatter so that no one else can get in a word." Cecil took off hat and gloves, and threw them down on the sofa. "I must say your looks don't pity you. You look as if you had been enjoying yourself all right. That kettle's boiling! I'm dying for a cup of tea! Let's have it at once, and talk comfortably." She seated herself by the table, and helped herself to a buttered scone. "What did you do on Christmas Day?" "The Willoughbys asked me. I went to church with them, and stayed until eleven." "Anything going on, or just the ordinary family frumps?" Claire laughed. "Nobody but relations and my fascinating self; but you needn't be so blighting. I enjoyed every moment, and they were angelically kind. Janet was like an old friend." "Did she give you a present?" "Yes, she did. Half a dozen pairs of gloves." "The wrong size, of course! They always are!" "No, my pessimist, they were not! She had diagnosed me as a six and a half, and six and a half I am, so all was peace and joy. I put on a new pair the next day when I went out for a constitutional. It was quite a tonic. Gloves are much cheaper abroad, and I never wore a shabby pair in my life until this winter. It's been one of the things I've hated most." "Six pairs will soon go," said Cecil; "I prefer to have things that last. Oh, by the way, you addressed a parcel. How did it come? Was it left at the door?" Instinctively Claire busied herself over the tea-tray. She had a feeling that Cecil would rather be unobserved; she was also afraid that her own expression might betray too much. "Oh no, he called. When I came in after morning church on Sunday, Lizzie said that a gentleman was waiting. It was Major Carew. He asked me if I would address the parcel and send it on." Silence. Claire bent over the tea-tray, but she knew without looking that Cecil's face had fallen into the cold set lines which she had seen times and again, when things had gone wrong; she knew that when she spoke again the coldness would be in her voice, but her own conscience was clear. She had done nothing to offend. "Really! That's curious. _Waiting_, you say? You didn't ask him in? What did he say?"