Shrewd, clever, and passably virtuous, he was nevertheless distinctly capable of follies; but he told her everything, even the worst, and though sometimes she frowned he smiled away the frown.  He adored her; he appreciated all the feminine in her; he yielded to her whims; he kissed her chin and her wrist, held her sunshade, opened doors for her, allowed her to beat him at tennis, and deliciously frightened her by driving her very fast round corners in a very high dog-cart.  And if occasionally she said, ’I am not as young as I was, Gerald,’ he always replied:  ‘Oh rot, mater!’

When Ethel or Milly remarked at breakfast, as they did now and then, that Mr. Twemlow had not fulfilled his promise of writing, Leonora would answer evenly, ‘No, I expect he’s forgotten us.’  And she would go and live with her son for a little.

* * * * *

She summoned this Gerald—­and it was for the last time—­as she stood irresolutely waiting for her husband at the door of the ladies’ cloak-room in the Town Hall.  She was dressed in black mousseline de soie.  The corsage, which fitted loosely except at the waist and the shoulders, where it was closely confined, was not too low, but it disclosed the beautiful diminutive rondures above the armpits, and, behind, the fine hollow of her back.  The sleeves were long and full with tight wrists, ending in black lace.  A band of pale pink silk, covered with white lace, wandered up one sleeve, crossed her breast in strict conformity with the top of the corsage, and wandered down the other sleeve; at the armpits, below the rondures, this band was punctuated with a pink rose.  An extremely narrow black velvet ribbon clasped her neck.  From the belt, which was pink, the full skirt ran down in a thousand perpendicular pleats.  The effect of the loose corsage and of the belt on Leonora’s perfect figure was to make her look girlish, ingenuous, immaculate, and with a woman’s instinct she heightened the effect by swinging her programme restlessly on its ivory-tinted cord.

They had arrived somewhat late, owing partly to John’s indecision and partly to an accident with Rose’s costume.  On reaching the Town Hall, not only Ethel and Milly, but Rose also, had deserted Leonora eagerly, impatiently, as ducklings scurry into a pond; they passed through the cloak-room in a moment, Rose first; Rose was human that evening.  Leonora did not mind; she anticipated the dance with neither joy nor melancholy, hoping nothing from it in her mood of neutral calm.  John was talking with David Dain at the entrance to the gentlemen’s cloak-room, further down the corridor.  Presently, old Mr. Hawley, the doctor at Hillport, joined the other two, and then Dain moved away, leaving John and the doctor in conversation.  Dain approached and saluted his client’s wife with characteristic sheepishness.

‘Large company, I believe,’ he said awkwardly.  In evening dress he was always particularly awkward.