The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had indirectly matured her. For above all Madame Piriac had imperceptibly taught her the everlasting joy and duty of exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude of the other sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because in order to please Mr. Gilman she wished--possibly without knowing it--to undo the disparity between herself and him. This may be strange, but it is assuredly more true than strange. To the same ends she had concealed her own age. Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She only made it clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she had passed her majority long before. Further, her wealth, magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not that she was so impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met American women in Paris compared to whom she was at destitution's door. She knew one woman who had kept a 2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer harbour at Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly eleven hours. Few of these people had an establishment. They would rent floors in hotels, or châteaux in Touraine, or yachts, but they had no home, and yet they seemed very content and beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did not trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was more than many of her acquaintances had. She would not use it, but she had it. And she was content in the knowledge of the power to create a home when she felt inclined to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set about creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her like a destiny. It would have been rude to him to do so; it would have been to transgress against the inter-sexual code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered what sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he would propose to her while they were looking at the view together.... She trembled with the sense of adventure, which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness.... But _would_ he propose to her? Not improbably the whole conception of the situation was false and she was being ridiculous! Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began to put on their gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with the chief priest. And Audrey had the illusion of being a dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet proudly handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple gold wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never removed it. She had never formally renounced her claim to the status of a widow. That she was not a widow, that she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred to, save perhaps in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued to be known as Mrs. Moncreiff. Ignominious close to a daring enterprise! And in the circumstances nothing was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold, wilful, calculating naughtiness at Colchester.