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though; he’s got Mr. Linley in with him, talking over something. It looks as if he’d stay to dinner, doesn’t it my Lady?”

“It does rather,” said Connie.

“Shall I put dinner back a quarter of an hour? That would give you time to dress in comfort.”

“Perhaps you’d better.”

Mr. Linley was the general manager of the collieries, an elderly man from the north, with not quite enough punch to suit Clifford; not up to postwar conditions, nor postwar colliers either, with their “ca’ canny” creed. But Connie liked Mr. Linley, though she was glad to be spared the toadying of his wife.

Linley stayed to dinner, and Connie was the hostess men liked so much, so modest, yet so attentive and aware, with big, wide blue eyes and a soft repose that sufficiently hid what she was really thinking. Connie had played this woman so much, it was almost second nature to her; but still, decidedly second. Yet it was curious how everything disappeared from her consciousness while she played it.

She waited patiently till she could go upstairs and think her own thoughts. She was always waiting, it seemed to be her forte.

Once in her room, however, she felt still vague and confused. She didn’t know what to think. What sort of a man was he, really? Did he really like her? Not much, she felt. Yet he was kind. There was something, a sort of warm naive kindness, curious and sudden, that almost opened her womb to him. But she felt he might be kind like that to any woman. Though even so, it was curiously soothing, comforting. And he was a passionate man, wholesome and passionate. But perhaps he wasn’t quite individual enough; he might be the same with any woman as he had been with her. It really wasn’t personal. She was only really a female to him.