The first week of Gaveston’s vacation disappeared in a long whirl of consultations with dressmakers, lawyers, furriers and beauty specialists, on his mother’s behalf, and, on his own, in visits to the photographer and tailor. (There was only one Hugh Cecil and Willy Clarkson, wasn’t there?) Indeed, he hardly found time to have his things packed up (they were leaving Half Moon Street, of course) or even to arrange the flowers of a morning. And then, once again, he found himself at that fateful Paddington, seeing his mother off to Bournemouth, after the successful pronouncement of the decree, her grey eyes shining with a new happiness. And suddenly he felt a terrible loneliness. “But I shall only be away three or four weeks, Gav dear,” she had said. “And I’m always as happy as a bird with Cousin Adolpha----” “As a mocking-bird?” Gav had queried laughingly to mask his bitter disappointment at missing for the first time his mother’s companionship at the festive season. But he had promised to be a good boy, and to treat his dear Uncle Wilkinson with tact. “You’ve such a lot,” she said wistfully, “and anyway it will be nice for you living in the[6] Albany this cold weather. It _was_ sweet of him to ask you to stay with him for your holidays.” [6] _Sic_ throughout. A more experienced novelist would doubtless have omitted the “the.” (LIT. EXEC.) And then the train had pulled out in its ruthless way, almost before he had time to find his way to the door of the reserved Pullman saloon-car, heavy with the scent of the winter-roses he had ordered to be sent from Selfridge’s that morning. How poignant was their sweetness amid the smoke and bustle and jangle of the mammoth terminus! Gaveston drove the Panhard (it was his favourite) back to Half Moon Street. Already the posters of the evening papers were sprawling in the muddy gutters and flapping in the rain-soaked wind---- PENHALIGON CASE: RESULT. How sad it all really was, he reflected, beneath the glittering surface, and how nerve-racking those months between the _nisi_ and the absolute. Poor Mums.… Was it rain on the wind-screen that dimmed his view of the lighted street as the great Panhard purred down the Edgware Road, or.… He brushed his eyes, and opened the throttle wider.… He picked up his suit-cases at the house, and drove round without delay to the Albany Yard. “Sir Wilkinson ffoulis?” he asked the porter. “C, sir,” came the answer, “on your right, if you please.” And C, The Albany, was to be Gav’s address for the rest of this vacation.