demi-mot_.


While Edith waited impatiently in the hall of the flat, Anne Yeo, her
unacknowledged rival in Hyacinth's affections, was doing needlework in
the window-seat of the studio, and watching Hyacinth, who, dressed to go
out, was walking up and down the room. With a rather wooden face, high
cheek-bones, a tall, thin figure, and no expression, Anne might have
been any age; but she was not. She made every effort to look quite forty
so as to appear more suitable as a chaperone, but was in reality barely
thirty. She was thinking, as she often thought, that Hyacinth looked too
romantic for everyday life. When they had travelled together this fact
had been rather a nuisance.

'Why, when you call at the Stores to order groceries, must you look as
if you were going to elope?' she asked dryly. 'In an ordinary motorveil
you have the air of hastening to some mysterious appointment.'

'But I'm only going to fetch Edith Ottley for a drive,' said Hyacinth.
'How bored she must get with her little Foreign Office clerk! The way he
takes his authority as a husband seriously is pathetic. He hasn't the
faintest idea the girl is cleverer than he is.'

'You'd far better leave her alone, and not point it out,' said Anne.
'You're always bothering about these little Ottleys now. But you've been
very restless lately. Whenever you try to do people good, and especially
when you motor so much and so fast, I recognise the symptoms. It's
coming on again, and you're trying to get away from it.'

'Don't say that. I'm never going to care about anyone again,' said