The mosaic causeway was narrow, so Lesley fell behind. The shining limb of the water-cross lay to one side of her, the edge of massed flowers to the other. The sky was deepening in its blue overhead, the creeping shadows below had gripped the lace bird-cage in the distance, making it look cold and grey. But the sun which caught the tops of the blossoming trees and made the painted kites that floated above them from the city look like jewels, seemed to linger mysteriously in the soft pink of Grace Arbuthnot's dress, the gay orange and yellow of Jack Raymond's blazer, and claim them as part of its brightness. In the hush of evening, the insistent 'Do-you-love-too--do-you-love-too' of one small cinnamon dove hidden in a rosebush, seemed to fill the garden. Until from beyond it came some gay voices discussing the 'Essence of Happiness' as the departing guests got into their carriages. 'Take your choice of the four W's!' said one; 'wisdom, wine, wealth, women!' 'I choose a whisky-and-soda,' retorted another. 'I give you in the rest, especially after tennis. By Jove! that was a splendid game.' 'Four W's!' put in a higher key. 'You've forgotten Worth--oh! I don't mean that worth, of course. The dressmaker man----' 'Ye don't need his art, me dear lady----' Lesley, walking behind those two, paused suddenly; for Jack Raymond had lingered to hold back that trailing rose-shoot from her frills and flounces also. And the cinnamon dove, startled by the pause, fled from the rose-bush to silence and deeper shade. Its flight made her start also. 'Frightened at a dove! said Jack Raymond in a low tone, 'and you weren't a bit frightened at the plague.' He was smiling at her, his face all soft and kind. She had never seen it like that before. But as he stepped back to Grace Arbuthnot's side, Lesley realised that _she_ had. The certainty that these two had been lovers once came to her then, and brought a curious sense of loneliness. The certainly that, in a way, they would be lovers always, brought her a pang before which she stood aghast. For there was no mistaking it; it was unreasonable, elemental jealousy. She felt inclined, then and there, to turn back and leave them to do their task alone. They did not want her. What was she, Lesley Drummond, doing there in that garden whose suggestiveness seemed to stifle her? Yes! to stifle her, because she could not escape from it! She, Lesley Drummond, who---- In her mind's eye she saw a vision of herself alighting from an omnibus at the corner of Bond Street on a wet day, picking her way over the greasy blister-marks of many feet on the pavement, heedless of the infinite suggestions in the shop windows, to have tea at a ladies'-club with an intimate friend, and solve the problems of life by hard and fast individualism tempered by a sloppy socialism.