Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/141



ITH the first cold days of autumn, the Ransomes were settled again in town. Teresa brought back from a long lazy summer in the country blooming health and content. Peace of soul and body had wrapped her round. A calm like that of summer nature itself had grown upon her, after the troubled and passionate spring. She was conscious of withdrawing herself from all that could disturb her, of retreating within herself, gathering her forces, mental and physical, for her solitary ordeal.

One day soon after her return Alice Blackley came to see her, fresh from the sea and a summer at St. Moritz, elaborately dressed, and ready to condole.

"You're looking well, though—really well," she said. "How do you manage it? Most women look such frights. And that dress is clever. Why, actually you look—perfectly presentable!"

And she examined curiously Teresa's long sweeping dress of dark violet crêpe, pleated in innumerable narrow folds, flowing out from the square-cut neck to the hem. Teresa smiled. "I should never dare, myself," said Alice.

"Why not?"