There and then she wanted to begin. Then and there, opening her eyes, she attempted to untuck the bedclothes. But her arms, weak, almost powerless, refused their task. Even as she moved them, the ghost of a remembered pain stabbed at her left lung; and, frightened by remembrance of past agony, she desisted. "Not yet," she thought, "not yet. I must rest for another week, perhaps for another fortnight. Fresh air might cure these lungs of mine, and make me well again. What a fool I am to deceive myself! That must be the consumption. Consumption always cheats its victims with the hope of life." And she fell to remembering Aubrey Beardsley, to comparing herself with him, to conjuring up mental pictures of his "handkerchief-parties," as he used to call them, when he would break off in the midst of some gay anecdote, rush--silk pressed to mouth--from the room, and return, gayer than ever, to carry on the game of make-believe with his cronies. "Brave!" mused Julia, "but I mustn't be brave like that. For Ronnie's sake I must husband every ounce of my strength. Above all, I must find a house in the country." The taking of that country-house, even though it had to be accomplished by proxy, served in no small way to distract her mind from gloomier thoughts. Mrs. Sanderson's inquiry had brought many answers, and Julia used to sit up in bed of a morning, her secretary in attendance, buff "particulars" from the house-agent's littered like cards on the heavily embroidered eiderdown. These perused, she would send for Aliette. "Take a car," she used to say. "Charge it to my account. The brougham's too slow for long journeys. This lot," handing over a packet of slips, "look as though they might do. All the rest are hopeless." For the best part of a week, Aliette motored about the southern counties. April was almost May; the blossomed countryside a dream of green and white beauty. Rushing lonely through the sunlit air, hedges, fields, and orchards streaming by, it seemed impossible that any breathing creature should be near to death. Her mood expanded to the expanding summer, so that she forgot her personal troubles, too, in the sheer fun of her quest, and enjoyed every minute of it, from the setting-out of midday to the evening consultations with her "mother-in-law" and Ronnie about the places she had seen. Finally, their choice narrowed itself down to two places--one, a modern mansion perched high on the slopes that overlook Reigate and Dorking; the other, an old-fashioned brown stone house roofed with great slabs of Sussex slate, midway between Horsham and the sea. "Let it be Sussex," decided Julia; and to Daffadillies, as the brown stone house called itself, some fortnight later, they went. 5