i Something awful had happened. Adeline had told Anne about it.

It seemed that Colin in his second year at Cambridge, when he should

have given his whole mind to reading for the Diplomatic Service, had had

the imprudence to get engaged. And to a girl that Adeline had never

heard of, about whom nothing was known but that she was remarkably

handsome and that her family (Courthopes of Leicestershire) were, in

Adeline's brief phrase, "all right."

From the terrace they could see, coming up the lawn from the goldfish

pond, Colin and his girl.

Queenie Courthope. She came slowly, her short Russian skirt swinging out

from her ankles. The brilliance of her face showed clear at a distance,

vermilion on white, flaming; hard, crystal eyes, sweeping and flashing;

bobbed hair, brown-red, shining in the sun. Then a dominant, squarish

jaw, and a mouth exquisitely formed, but thin, a vermilion thread drawn

between her staring, insolent nostrils and the rise of her round chin.

This face in its approach expressed a profound, arrogant indifference to

Adeline and Anne. Only as it turned towards Colin its grey-black eyes

lowered and were soft dark under the black feathers of their brows.

Colin looked back at it with a shy, adoring tenderness.

Queenie could be even more superbly uninterested than Adeline. In

Adeline's self-absorption there was a passive innocence, a candor that

disarmed you, but Queenie's was insolent and hostile; it took possession

of the scene and challenged every comer.

"Hallo, Anne!" Colin shouted. "How did you get here?"

"Motored down."

"I say, have you got a car?"

"Only just."

"Drove yourself?"

"Rather."

Queenie scowled as if there were something disagreeable to her in the

idea that Anne should have a car of her own and drive it. She endured

the introduction in silence and addressed herself with an air of

exclusiveness to Colin.

"What are we going to do?"

"Anything you like," he said.

"I'll play you singles, then."

"Anne might like to play," said Colin. But he still looked at Queenie,

as she flamed in her beauty.

"Oh, three's a rotten game. You can't play the two of us unless Miss

Severn handicaps me."

"She won't do that. Anne could take us both on and play a decent game."

Queenie picked up her racquet and stood between them, beating her skirts

with little strokes of irritated impatience. Her eyes were fixed on

Colin, trying, you could see, to dominate him.

"We'd better take it in turns," he said.

"Thanks, Col-Col. I'd rather not play. I've driven ninety-seven miles."

"Really rather?"

Queenie backed towards the court.

"Oh, come on, Colin, if you're coming."

He went.

"What do you think of Queenie?" Adeline said.

"She's very handsome."

"Yes, Anne. But it isn't a nice face. Now, is it?"




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