Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/288

 he could get away before ten he would come down and stop at Pentlands if the lights were still burning in the drawing-room. Otherwise he would not be down to ride in the morning.

Once during a pause in the game Sabine stirred herself to say, "I haven't asked about Anson's book. He must be near to the end."

"Very near," said Olivia. "There's very little more to be done. Men are coming to-morrow to photograph the portraits. He's using them to illustrate the book."

At eleven, when they came to the end of a rubber, Sabine said, "I'm sorry, but I must stop. I must get up early to-morrow to see about the packing." And turning to Jean she said, "Will you drive me home? Perhaps Sybil will ride over with us for the air. You can bring her back."

At the sound of her voice, Olivia wanted to cry out, "No, don't go. You mustn't leave me now . . . alone. You mustn't go away like this!" But she managed to say quietly, in a voice which sounded far away, "Don't stay too late, Sybil," and mechanically, without knowing what she was doing, she began to put the cards back again in their boxes.

She saw that Sabine went out first, and then John Pentland and old Mrs. Soames, and that Jean and Sybil remained behind until the others had gone, until John Pentland had helped the old lady gently into his motor and driven off with her. Then, looking up with a smile which somehow seemed to give her pain she said, "Well?"

And Sybil, coming to her side, kissed her and said in a low voice, "Good-by, darling, for a little while. . . . I love you. . . ." And Jean kissed her in a shy fashion on both cheeks.

She could find nothing to say. She knew Sybil would come back, but she would be a different Sybil, a Sybil who was a woman, no longer the child who even at eighteen some-