The Call of the Blood

Miss Townly, gracefully turned away from Hermione's door by Selim, did,

as Artois had surmised, drift away in the fog to the house of her friend

Mrs. Creswick, who lived in Sloane Street. She felt she must unburden

herself to somebody, and Mrs. Creswick's tea, a blend of China tea with

another whose origin was a closely guarded secret, was the most delicious

in London. There are merciful dispensations of Providence even for Miss

Townlys, and Mrs. Creswick was at home with a blazing fire. When she saw

Miss Townly coming sideways into the room with a slightly drooping head,

she said, briskly: "Comfort me with crumpets, for I am sick with love! Cheer up, my dear

Evelyn. Fogs will pass and even neuralgia has its limits. I don't ask you

what is the matter, because I know perfectly well."

Miss Townly went into a very large arm-chair and waveringly selected a

crumpet.

"What does it all mean?" she murmured, looking obliquely at her friend's

parquet.

"Ask the baker, No. 5 Allitch Street. I always get them from there. And

he's a remarkably well-informed man."

"No, I mean life with its extraordinary changes, things you never

expected, never dreamed of--and all coming so abruptly. I don't think I'm

a stupid person, but I certainly never looked for this."

"For what?"

"This most extraordinary engagement of Hermione's."

Mrs. Creswick, who was a short woman who looked tall, with a briskly

conceited but not unkind manner, and a decisive and very English nose,

rejoined: "I don't know why we should call it extraordinary. Everybody gets engaged

at some time or other, and Hermione's a woman like the rest of us and

subject to aberration. But I confess I never thought she would marry

Maurice Delarey. He never seemed to mean more to her than any one else,

so far as I could see."

"Everybody seems to mean so much to Hermione that it makes things

difficult to outsiders," replied Miss Townly, plaintively. "She is so

wide-minded and has so many interests that she dwarfs everybody else. I

always feel quite squeezed when I compare my poor little life with hers.

But then she has such physical endurance. She breaks the ice, you know,

in her bath in the winter--of course I mean when there is ice."

"It isn't only in her bath that she breaks the ice," said Mrs. Creswick.

"I perfectly understand," Miss Townly said, vaguely. "You mean--yes,

you're right. Well, I prefer my bath warmed for me, but my circulation

was never of the best."