The anger and the jealousy were over; and all of a sudden she gave in.

“You can have the house, if you like, Keith.”

“All right; I do like it.  That’s a dear little Beaver.”

As he approached her her glance fled.  “I didn’t say you could have the room.  I want to keep it empty.”

He put his arm round her and led her to the window.  “What do you want to keep it empty for, Flossie?”

Her poor little thoughts, surprised and dismayed, went scurrying hither and thither, trying to hide their trail.

“Oh,” she said, still looking away from him.  “To store things in.”  He drew her closer to him and kissed her tenderly.

It seemed to him that a serene and happy light rested on the garden, on the empty house, and on the empty room that she had peopled already with her innocent dream.  It seemed to him that in that remote gaze of her woman’s eyes, abstracted from her lover, unconsciously desirous of the end beyond desire, he saw revealed the mystery, the sanctity, the purity of wedded love.  And seeing it he forgave her that momentary abstraction.

But the Beaver never dreamed; she was far too practical.  She was building, that was all.

CHAPTER LIV

That evening as they sat down to dinner, it might have been noticed that Mrs Downey’s face was more flushed and festal than it had been since the day was fixed for Mr. Rickman’s wedding and departure.  She seated herself expansively, with a gay rustling of many frills, and smiled well pleased upon the arrangements of her table.  From these signs it was evident that Mrs. Downey was expecting another boarder, a boarder of whom she had reason to be proud.  Rickman noticed with dismay that the stranger’s place was laid beside his own.  He knew them so well, these eternal, restless birds of passage, draggled with their flight from one boarding-house to another.  The only tolerable thing about them was that, being here to-day, they were gone to-morrow.

The new boarder was late, culpably late.  But Mrs. Downey was proud of that too, as arguing that the poor bird of passage had stayed to smooth her ruffled plumage.  Mrs. Downey approved of all persons who thus voluntarily acknowledged the high ceremonial character of the Dinner.  She was glad that Mr. Rickman would appear to-night in full evening dress, to rush away in the middle of the meal, a splendour the more glorious, being brief.  She was waiting for the delightful moment when she would explain to the visitor that the gentleman who had just left the room was Mr. Rickman, “the reviewer and dramatic critic.”  She would say it, as she had said it many times before, with the easy accomplished smile of the hostess familiar with celebrity.