late she had felt rising within her the old vague craving for “life,” for pleasure, for something more than the mere negative admiration bestowed on her by her “Tommies.”  Those old letters—­to look them through them had been a sure sign of this vague craving—­had sharpened to poignancy the feeling that life was slipping away from her while she was still comely.  She had been long out of England, and so hard-worked since she came back that there were not many threads she could pick up suddenly.  Two letters out of that little budget of the past, with a far cry between them, had awakened within her certain sentimental longings.  “Dear lady of the starry flowers,

“Exiturus (sic) to saluto!  The tender carries you this message of good-bye.  Simply speaking, I hate leaving South Africa.  And of all my memories, the last will live the longest.  Grape harvest at Constantia, and you singing:  ’If I could be the falling dew:  If ever you and your husband come to England, do let me know, that I may try and repay a little the happiest five days I’ve spent out here.

“Your very faithful servant,
“Timmy fort.”

She remembered a very brown face, a tall slim figure, and something gallant about the whole of him.  What was he like after ten years?  Grizzled, married, with a large family?  An odious thing—­Time!  And Cousin Edward’s little yellow letter.

Good heavens!  Twenty-six years ago—­before he was a parson, or married or anything!  Such a good partner, really musical; a queer, dear fellow, devoted, absentminded, easily shocked, yet with flame burning in him somewhere.  ’Dear Leila,

“After our last dance I went straight off’—­I couldn’t go in.  I went down to the river, and walked along the bank; it was beautiful, all grey and hazy, and the trees whispered, and the cows looked holy; and I walked along and thought of you.  And a farmer took me for a lunatic, in my dress clothes.  Dear Leila, you were so pretty last night, and I did love our dances.  I hope you are not tired, and that I shall see you soon again: 

“Your affectionate cousin,
“Edward Pierson.”

And then he had gone and become a parson, and married, and been a widower fifteen years.  She remembered the death of his wife, just before she left for South Africa, at that period of disgrace when she had so shocked her family by her divorce.  Poor Edward—­quite the nicest of her cousins!  The only one she would care to see again.  He would be very old and terribly good and proper, by now.

Her wheel of Regent’s Park was coming full circle, and the sun was up behind the houses, but still no sound of traffic stirred.  She stopped before a flower-bed where was some heliotrope, and took a long, luxurious sniff:  She could not resist plucking a sprig, too, and holding it to her nose.  A sudden want of love had run through every nerve and fibre of her; she shivered, standing there with her eyes half closed, above the pale violet blossom.  Then, noting by her wrist-watch that it was four o’clock, she hurried on, to get to her bed, for she would have to be on duty again at noon.  Oh! the war!  She was tired!  If only it were over, and one could live!...