Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/253

 I'm awfully pleased with it. It will be ever so nice having a car to take the children out.' She reached up and took hold of the lapels of his overcoat and gave him a little shake. She simply mustn't let him guess how near she was to bursting into bitter tears, how far from desiring what she now playfully demanded. 'Come kiss me, Felix,' she smiled.  ' Really kiss me, I mean. You haven't seen me for six weeks! . . . There! That's right. Now take off your overcoat, open your suitcase, and I'll help you get dressed.'

Roger's table was in one corner of the dining-room and Sheilah's in another. He had liked the space that had intervened, because he could gaze at her profile to his heart's content, without observation. But to-night he did not gaze at Sheilah's profile. He did not see it. He saw only one thing, and he saw it the moment she entered the dining-room, with Felix limping behind her—a second white yoke across her shoulders!

He left the dining-room as soon as possible.

'Coffee, please, in the library,' he told the waitress, as he rose to go.

Frowning, his usually smooth and cloudless brow dark and brooding now, he went out onto the porch, standing a moment by the railing, gazing down into