Nobody answered him.


Chapter 1.XIII.

A cloud, small, serene, floated across the moon. In that moment of
darkness the sea sounded deep, troubled. Then the cloud sailed away, and
the sound of the sea was a vague murmur, as though it waked out of a dark
dream. All was still.



2. THE GARDEN PARTY.

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more
perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the
sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold,
as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn,
mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat
rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the
roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only
flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that
everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had
come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had
been visited by archangels.

Breakfast was not yet over before the men came to put up the marquee.

"Where do you want the marquee put, mother?"