"One's a wedding ring and the other's a mourning ring. I bought them yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!" She stilled further exclamations from Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall. "Look here! Quick!" she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable for a young girl, and a widow's veil. "I look bewitching in them," said Audrey, relocking the case. "But, my child, what does it mean?" "It means that I'm not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I've had more than enough of being a girl. I'm determined to arrive in Paris as a young widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In fact, you'll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now don't say you won't go, because you will." "You ought to have told me before." "No, I oughtn't. Nothing could have been more foolish." "But who are you the widow of?" "Hurrah!" cried Audrey. "You are a sport, Winnie! I'll tell you all the interesting details in the train." In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the station. CHAPTER VII THE CIGARETTE GIRL Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction possible. It was the result of a mysterious "Law of Exchange." She was aware of this. She had lost her childhood's naive illusions about the sovereignty of money.