dinner, out in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the
flicker of the cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague
that for a long while Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen
rushing sensation of the strangeness of her situation here--Linda
Hallet. The night was like a dream from which she would stir, sigh,
to find herself back again in the past waiting for the return of her
mother from one of her late parties.

But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went
into the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began
in a low remembering tone:

"What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered
room where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of
Hallet in the devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what
happened; why, all the time, you were upset--why, why, why?"

"In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of
my mother's front wave," she explained.

"Of course," he replied derisively, "nothing could be plainer."

She agreed calmly. "It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell
you don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it
because I was so rotten to you.

"Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other
things exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did
nothing but lace and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it
was a game they played and wonder where the fun was. There were even