not a breath of air in the garden; roses and wallflowers stood
erect in a sort of luminous enchantment. Moonlight sank through
the low twisted branches of the near-by oaks and fell tangled with
black and lacy shade through the porch rose vine.

Alix sat on the porch rail, every line of crisp skirt and braided
head revealed as if by daylight, but Cherry's pale striped gown
was only a glimmer in the deepest shade of the vine. Peter,
smoking, sat where he could not but see her; they had hardly
looked at each other directly since the long, strange look of this
afternoon; they had exchanged hardly a word.

A black cat crept across the grass, her body dragging stealthily
on crouched legs, boldly silhouetted in the moonshine, invisible
in the shade. Alix defeated her hunting plans by flinging a well-
aimed pebble into the shrubbery ahead of her. The cat,
dissembling, lay down in the dry grass, cleaned a paw, and
coquetted with her tail.

"Town to-morrow, Pete?" Alix said, after a silence during which
she had locked her arms behind her head, stared straight above her
at the path the moon was making through faint stars, and yawned.
"I've got to go in to a meeting of the hospital board."

"I didn't know you were on it," Cherry said.

"Peter's mother was, and hence I am," Alix said, virtuously.
Cherry felt an old little prick of jealousy. Alix was strangely
indifferent to the position she held.