CHAPTER XVII.

STELLA looked even more beautiful than she had done a year ago. She was now twenty-three, the age which in Englishwomen brings the softness and bloom of youth to its zenith. A woman may become handsomer, more attractive when she is older, but after twenty-three she loses that peculiar and entrancing glow of girlhood. George was evidently proud of his wife's appearance, but he let slip all unconsciously a remark that to Maud was flooded with significance. The remark was:

'Hasn't she made herself smart to greet you?' Stella found it difficult and also unnecessary to be tidy except for occasions. The presence of a lover is always an occasion,' the presence of a husband is a fact of daily life,' a glorious fact of course. The first meeting with Maud and Aunt Dorothy since Stella's wedding day was an occasion.'

Under the full glare of the electric light in the drawing-room, Maud thought that George looked thinner than he had been a year ago, and she thought she detected an anxious look in his eyes.

'I thought you were never coming back,' said Stella, as she sprang upon the necks of her relatives and then began to look round the drawing-room. Was she already contemplating a musical At Home at which she would perform?

She could scarcely wait for the usual exchange of questions and answers that are customary between people who meet after a long absence in which much of importance has happened.

'May I have Maud to-morrow?' she begged of Lady Dorothy. 'I know that you will be deep in talk with Mrs. Jackson for hours --but could Maud come after lunch-then you come and dine with us, Aunt Dorothy, now, do promise-do, do, do!'

Stella's eagerness was so great that Maud surmised that she had something of supreme importance to communicate to her, and so she submitted with a good grace to being taken possession of on the following day. The next morning, she and Aunt Dorothy went into the little back garden and looked at Kiddie's graveagain it was a ceremony that had to be gone through, and it was thought best to do it between breakfast and lunch. It was sad to think that cats, which had been forbidden the sodden grass and the blackened ivy during Kiddie's lifetime, could now walk over both ostentatiously and even seat themselves upon the little mound

beneath which he lay oblivious in his satin-lined coffin. Lady Dorothy was, after all, so much taken up with finding herself among her old possessions and so engrossed with Mrs. Jackson, that Maud was able to start off to Stella's flat without feeling that she was leaving a tragedy behind her. By the first post that morning a letter had come addressed to her in Ursula's handwriting. The handwriting was shaky for Ursula. Maud did not open it at once; somehow she dared not. It seemed like the seal placed on her home-coming-she would read it later in the morning. Then the morning had passed and Maud said she would read it after lunch. Did it contain some plan for the future? That was what Maud dreaded! What plan could it suggest that would not be dreary! After lunch Maud thought that she would read it on her way to Stella. Feeling like a coward, she put the letter into her muff and sat alone in the old brougham with it still unread. For the moment she had a right to be entirely engrossed in Stella—for Stella had some important secret to tell her alone. Maud guessed what-the secret of secrets.

She rushed up the two flights of stairs to the flat and rang the bell. A very dirty maid unlocked the door and called out into the darkness behind her- Here's Miss Monckton,' and switched on the light. Then she looked Maud all over with eyes of approbation.

Maud walked in and looked about her. From an open door emerged Stella in a crimson dressing-gown, very much stained down the front. Her hair was, however, done-for the occasion,' and she was smiling and delighted to see her sister. Clear away the lunch,' she called out to the maid, and she drew Maud into her bedroom, where the electric light was still on and the room in an extraordinary disorder.

'I knew you would understand my not being dressed as Aunt Dorothy is coming to dinner-I thought I'd dress once and for always just before teatime

Maud looked round her. The white painted furniture was already chipped and bruised at all the corners, and one of the white plaster cupids that held up the mirror had been deprived of his nose-not from the effects of constant dusting, for both charming figures had their limbs boldly accentuated by the accumulation of many months of dust.

The pink curtains on the window and pink bed-hangings were half off their hooks-there was an indescribable collection of clothes piled up in one of the corners of the room, as if it was meant ulti

mately to serve as a support for the ceiling. On the toilet-table were the strange and unornamental bottles and boxes with contents of various kinds in various states of decomposition, which Stella always referred to as 'still being useful.'

'Isn't it a sweet room?' said Stella, but just a little untidy to-day. I can't get that impossible girl to do anything properly. There is not one servant in a thousand that's trained nowadays.'

Having shown her bedroom as it was in the glory of actual use, Stella took Maud into the drawing-room-a tiny room full of a grand piano. She put on the electric stove and made her sister sit on the couch opposite it. This room contained no pictures, the wall-paper provided sufficient scope for meditation in its design of immense birds of some tropical species with blue-green plumage. The square of blue Axminster carpet had a stain on it, exactly in front of the stove, as if some one had poured out a libation of coffee, spreading it out with a liberal hand, as widely and lengthily as possible. Maud did not know whether to laugh or to cry. What a home for George Broughton! Good Heavens, and with the addition of a baby what would it be like?

'The room is too small for entertaining,' said Stella. 'It's of no use.'

'If you only hadn't a grand piano!' murmured Maud, looking at that article of furniture. Then she added,' But you have something to tell me, Stella,' and Maud touched her sister's hand. 'I hurried off after lunch as soon as I could.'

'I couldn't talk about it before Aunt Dorothy,' said Stella, especially with George there!'

'Yes,' said Maud sympathetically, of course.'

'Well, the fact is,' said Stella, that I am in awful straits. I'll explain all about it after-but, to go straight to the point at once I want you-if you will-and I know you will-to see if you couldn't get Aunt Dorothy to allow George something every year-without telling George.'

'Oh!' said Maud aghast.

'It's on George's account, not on mine,' continued Stella, 'because I have begun to find out that he isn't at all strong and the least thing worries him. It's a great handicap for a man to be like that; to tell you the truth, Maud, he doesn't, and can't, poor fellow, help me in the least.'

'Help you in what?' asked Maud.

'Help me with the housekeeping,' said Stella.

'Why on earth should he?'

'I should say why shouldn't he?' said Stella. Last spring I had overrun my allowance by forty pounds. He saw how it wasn't my fault but just the nature of things and couldn't be helped, and yet he was upset about it. Then we went down to Brighton to Ursula and I told her. She gave me forty pounds. Now this time the same thing's happened-1 can't make ends meet. I haven't told George because I want to spare him. Naturally, he is sensitive about being able to give me so much less than most women expect. Then I can't myself ask anything more from Ursula, although privately, Maud, I don't know what she can do with her money— as her lodgings must cost her next to nothing.'

"The lodgings where she is now?' asked Maud, her heart growing heavier and heavier.

'I haven't seen her since she went to that farm on the Downs. I was speaking of her other lodgings in Brighton-a horrid street; and then she spends nothing on her clothes.'

'I know that,' said Maud.

'Well, what is to be done?' asked Stella, as if the whole matter now thoroughly explained rested on Maud's shoulders.

'Shall I come and-and put your affairs in order and see if I couldn't start you again?' asked Maud, after a pause.

Stella eyed her strangely.

'You assume that I am not housekeeping properly.'

'Economical housekeeping needs a certain amount of moral courage, but it would be worth while exerting that in order to save George from an early grave.' Maud spoke with exasperating calmness.

'Thanks,' said Stella, ' I'm not going to have poor George starved -if that's what you mean. I have given a standing order to the butcher for chops. I know it is expensive, but then fresh meat is so important.'

Poor George!' murmured Maud, under her breath.

'What I really want, Maud, don't mind my speaking plainly, is more money, not advice.'

'You ought to be able to manage on what you have got,' said Maud. 'I could do it-and give George a new dinner every evening.' There came a short silence, and both girls stared at the electric stove.

'You must remember, my dear Maud,' said Stella at last, in an icy voice, that you are speaking to a girl who has shown herself

willing to face poverty for the man she loves. Except for George's sake, I couldn't have gone through with what I have endured this last eighteen months. Perhaps you don't understand what love can do I don't think you can-or you wouldn't have behaved as you did to Major Kames. You would have either accepted him or refused him straight away.'

Stella leant back into her corner of the couch, feeling morally justified in saying what she was saying. Maud had behaved disgracefully to Major Kames, and yet no one had been allowed to blame her. Not a word had ever been spoken on the subject by Ursula, and even Aunt Dorothy had been extraordinarily silent and forgiving. Maud was always the favourite with both women and had, therefore, got an exaggerated opinion of herself.

Like George IV. with his personal recollections of the battle of Waterloo, Stella had acquired the belief that she had 'practically' refused Major Kames' straight away.'

George had for so long told her that she was the most beautiful and the most gifted woman in the world that it naturally followed that Major Kames must have preferred her to Maud, and had ‘sort of proposed' only that she would not do him the injustice to let him quite propose.' Maud, now, angled for him and then jilted him. She had behaved disgracefully.

'Nothing that you can say,' said Maud, in a suppressed voice, 'would make me realise better than I do now, how meanly I behaved to Lionel Kames.'

And I really think that Last May she was like a

'I'm glad you think so,' said Stella. the worry of it affected Ursula's health. skeleton. She pretended that she wasn't ill and was quite vexed at my speaking of it. I don't think she is really any better now, because when I wrote to ask she evaded an answer.' Stella's voice was full of moral conviction.

'Don't think me disagreeable, Maud,' she said, 'I merely want you to see that while you are discussing my affairs, you must remember that I could discuss yours-if I wanted to, only I don't want to.'

Maud did not reply-she could feel Ursula's letter in her muffUrsula like a skeleton! Was that true, or was it merely said to emphasise Stella's sermon ?

'Is Ursula seriously unwell?' she demanded. If so, I ought to go to her at once. Why didn't you tell me last night, Stella ?'

Perhaps that letter contained the truth. Why had she not opened it? She could not do so now in Stella's presence-she must wait.