A strange, muffled noise came to them across the darkness of the
sitting-room, and G.J. raised his head slightly to listen.

"Repose! Repose thyself in the arms of thy little mother," she
breathed softly. "It is nothing. It is but the wind blowing the blind
against the curtains."

And later, when she had distilled the magic of the hour and was
tranquillised, she said:

"And where is it, this flat?"




Chapter 39

IDYLL


Christine said to Marie, otherwise La Mère Gaston, the new servant
in the new flat, who was holding in her hand a telegram addressed to
"Hoape, Albany":

"Give it to me. I will put it in front of the clock on the
mantelpiece."

And she lodged it among the gilt cupids that supported the clock on
the fringed mantelpiece in the drawing-room. She did so with a little