“Everything’s _perfect_,” Barbara cried, with a conviction that had been lacking when she used the same words earlier. As we settled ourselves in the car, she added joyously: “How sweet every one is! Marion wants us to choose a night for dining with her next week. And I’ve committed you to the Pinto de Vasconcellos the week after. And Bobbie Pentyre wants us to go to Croxton one week-end. Can you remember all that? And will you come?” “Anywhere you like,” I promised. “You seem to have had rather a success to-night, Babs.” “It’s a good world! I’ve got back my grip on life. . . . I feel _free_,” she went on with a note of wonder; and her hand stole shyly into mine as though we were composing a quarrel: “George dear, I’m sorry to have been unsatisfactory, sorry to have worried you. I promised on Armistice Day that I wouldn’t speak of certain people. You can’t help thinking of them, but since to-night I’m not . . . haunted. _Seeing_ Eric has broken the spell. . . . I can meet him now. I’m going to. Madame Pinto said he was coming to her party.” Remembering Eric’s look of anguish when he caught sight of Barbara, I felt that the greatest kindness she could shew him would be to prevent further meetings. It was folly, I thought, for her to invite him to our first reception, it was madness to expect that he would come; and, if I said nothing at the time, it was for fear she would imagine that I was jealous. “Make things as easy as you can for him,” I recommended. “We can give him the opportunity of being friends again.” “And don’t be hurt if he doesn’t take it. Men of that kind, imaginative and highly-strung . . . In his way, he is a bit of a genius.” . . . “I gave him that,” she murmured with a pride which I thought ill-timed. “He had only talent before.” To judge by appearances, Eric had paid dearly for his goddess’ kiss. “They feel things more intensely,” I continued, “than dull, matter-of-fact people like me.” Barbara made no answer for several minutes; then she looked straight ahead and asked: “Wouldn’t you feel it as much if you lost me?” “I should feel it more than anything in the world.” “It’s broken Eric. He’ll never be mended. But it wouldn’t break you?” Faint though the challenge was, I fancied, for the first time in my life, that Barbara was trying to drag me into a ‘scene’. “We won’t talk about it,” I said. “I don’t think anything would break you. And you may take that how you like.” The words may have been her tribute to flint-like resolution or her criticism of wooden insensibility. The way that I decided to take them was in silence. Barbara hid her face in the great nosegay of carnations which she always carried, then held them out, like an impulsive child, for me to smell. As she walked, slender, tall and radiant, into the house, I felt that this was the day which I had waited fourteen months to see dawning.