"warned" that I was chef at the cottage. Mother gave him "a chance to
change his mind." Something was said about my saving life and
destroying digestion. He went to collect his things in an ecstasy of
merriment.

At this point I committed an indiscretion which can only be excused by
the magnitude of the occasion.

My mother had retired to her favourite bow-window where, by a _tour
de force_ on the part of the carpenter, a system of low, adjustable
bookcases had been craftily constructed in such a way that when she sat
in her window-seat they jutted in a semicircle towards her hand.

James, whom I had escorted down the garden path, had left me at the
little wooden gate and had gone swinging down the road. I, shielded
from outside observation (if any) by a line of lilacs, gazed
rapturously at his retreating form. The sun was high in the sky now. It
was a perfect summer's day. Birds were singing. Their notes blended
with the gentle murmur of the sea on the beach below. Every fibre of my
body was thrilling with the magic of the morning.

Through the kindly branches of the lilac I watched him, and then, as
though in obedience to the primaeval call of that July sunshine, I
stood on tiptoe, and blew him a kiss.

I realised in an instant what I had done. Fool that I had been. The
bow-window!

I was rigid with discomfiture. My mother's eyes were on the book she
held. And yet a faint smile seemed to hover round her lips. I walked in