contracts entered into with one's neighbour for purposes of mutual
enjoyment or advantage. She thought that life could be put down in
black and white. Which was a mistake. She had gone through fifty
years of it without discovering that for the sake of some memory--
possibly a girlish one--hidden away behind her cold grey eyes, she
could never be sure of herself in dealing with man or boy whose
being bore the impress of the sea.

The strange thing was that she had never found it out. We speak
pityingly of animals that do not know their own strength. Which of
us knows his own weakness? There was a man connected with Mrs.
Harrington's life, one of the contractors in black and white, who
had found out this effect of a brown face and a blue coat upon a
woman otherwise immovable. This man, Cipriani de Lloseta, who
contemplated life, as it were, from a quiet corner of the dress
circle, kept his knowledge for his own use.

Fitz and Luke obeyed her invitation without much enthusiasm. They
were boyish enough to object to kissing on principle. They then
shook hands awkwardly with Mrs. Ingham-Baker, and drifted together
again with that vague physical attraction which seems to qualify
twins for double harness on the road of life. There was trouble
ahead of them; and without defining the situation, like soldiers
surprised, they instinctively touched shoulders.

It was the psychological moment. There was a little pause, during
which Mrs. Harrington seemed to stiffen herself, morally and
physically. Had she not stiffened herself, had she only allowed
herself, as it were, to go--to call Luke to her and comfort him and
sympathise with him--it would have altered every life in that room,