"Yes," said Elma, "though it’s so often ’so near and yet so far’ with Adelaide Maud, she is really my greatest friend." Cuthbert seemed impressed. "She doesn’t need to make so much of the ’so far’ pose," he said gruffly. "Oh yes, she does," replied Elma. "It’s her mother. She withers poor Adelaide Maud to a stick. It’s a wonder she’s such a duck. Adelaide Maud, I mean. Cuthbert, when are you coming home for a long visit?" she asked. "Next summer. I shall tell you a great secret. I think I am to get a lectureship, quite a good thing. Can you keep it from the pater until I’m sure?" "Rather," said Elma. "Then," he said, "if it isn’t all roses here next summer, you’ll only have one person to blame." "One?" asked Elma. Visions of Isobel cut everything from her mind. "Is it Isobel?" she asked mildly. "Isobel!" Cuthbert looked so disgusted that she could have kissed him. She saw Isobel at that moment. She was swaying round the room in the perfection of rhythm with no less an old loyalist than George Maclean. Ah, well--all their good friends might drift over there, but she still had Cuthbert. The joy of it lent wings to her little figure. It always had been and always remained difficult for her to adapt her small stride to men of Cuthbert’s build. This night she suddenly acquired the strength and ease--the knowledge which really having him gave her, to make dancing with him become a facile affair. "Oh, Cuthbert, this is ripping," she sighed at last. "If it isn’t Isobel, who is it?" she asked him. "Why, Elma, you are a little donkey! Who could it be, but ’Love of our Lives,’ Adelaide Maud?" He swung her far into the middle:--where the floor became as melted wax, and life opened out to Elma like a flower. "Oh, Cuthbert dear, how ripping," said little Elma. CHAPTER XIX Herr Slavska Mabel had discovered that a woman with a mission hasn’t such a bad time of it. She set out on her journey to Jean without one of her usual misgivings. It was jolly to think that she might be able to be of some use in the world. The tediousness of a long journey of changes till she reached the main-line and thundered direct to London did not pall on her as it had done before. Throughout she thought, "I’m getting nearer to Jean, and I shall put her on her feet." She prepared to hate the girls’ club, but to be quite uninfluenced by it. She would take Jean out, till neither of them cared what the club was like at all. She forgot Robin and Isobel and everything except one thing which she would never forget, and Jean. She drove up to the door of the club in the most energetic and independent mood she had ever experienced. She didn’t care whether the secretary looked her up and down or not. She merely went straight to Jean’s room. Jean didn’t at all pretend that it was a downcome. She simply wept with delight at the sight of Mabel.