“There was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams,” is Rosalind’s startling description of the courtship between Oliver and Celia. These lovers, however, were Elizabethans who did things in a large, splendid and unhesitating way. The case with Tommy and Etta, who were moderns, governed by all kinds of subtleties and delicacies, three centuries’ growth, was not quite so instantaneous. The ordinary modern youth and maiden, of such clean upbringing, walk along together, hand in hand in perfect innocence, for a long time, never realising that they are in love with one another till something happens. The maiden may be sent into the country by an infuriated mother. Hence revelation with anguish. The indiscreet jesting of a friend, a tragedy causing both to come hard against the bed-rock facts of life, may shatter the guileless shell of their love. I know of two young things who came by the knowledge through bumping their heads together beneath a table while searching for a fallen penny. A shock, a jar is all that is needed. But with Tommy and Etta nothing yet had happened. They walked along together sweetly imagining themselves to be fancy-free. If the truth were known it would be found that the main subject of their conversation was Clementina. When the time came for them to leave the café, Tommy helped both ladies to put on their jackets. The human warmth of the crowded terrace sheltered from the mountain breeze by the awnings had rendered wraps unnecessary. But outside they discovered the air to be chill. Clementina first was invested—with the slightest hint of hurry. She turned and saw Tommy snatch Etta’s jacket from a far too ready waiter’s hand. In his investiture of Etta there was the slightest hint of lingering. In the nice adjustment of the collar their fingers touched. The girl raised laughing eyes which his met tenderly. A knife was thrust through Clementina’s heart and she closed her thin lips tightly to dissimulate the pain. Etta came into her room that night under the vague pretence of playing maid and helping her to undress. Her aid chiefly consisted in sitting on the bed and chattering out of a bird-like happiness. “It’s all just heaven,” she declared. “I wish I could show you how grateful I am. I’ve had nothing like it all my life. When I get home I won’t rest till I’ve teased father into getting a car—he’s so old-fashioned you know, and thinks his fat old horses and the family omnibus make up the only equipage for a gentleman. But I’ll worry him into a car, and then we’ll go all over Europe. But it won’t be quite the same without—without you, Clementina, dear.” Clementina wriggled into an old flannel dressing jacket and began to roll a cigarette. “I thought you were going to be a hospital nurse.” “So did I,” said the girl, a shadow flitting swiftly over her face. “But I don’t seem to want to now, I should hate it.” “What has made you change your mind?” asked Clementina, after the first puff of smoke.