"I legged it up to the first floor. Her sitting-room door was open; well, in I went, and there I got a nasty one."
Here Mr. Brown stopped to draw a breath, to finish his cooling tea, and to offer a cigarette to Olwen, listening with all her ears. There is no audience to a love-story so intent and so satisfactory as the girl to whom one has been attracted. Curiosity as to her supplanter burns in the breast of the woman whether or no she had been attracted to the man; curiosity made of varied elements—sympathy is one, and competition is one, and the undying yearning to compare notes is another....
Little Mr. Brown went on.
"Well, it was a pretty room, full of sun in the morning. Pretty coloured curtains and cushions about; and lots of flowers and that yellow bobbly thingummybob scented stuff—mimosa. And then.... Her in the middle of it all——all different....
"I stopped dead and stared at her, never even saying good morning. Miss Olwen, I can tell you it was a shock to me.
"Last night, you see, I'd left her looking like a saucy little tomboy in that khaki working kit of hers with a cap the same as my own on her head and a black-and-white badge of the R. F. C. on her shoulder, and those brown riding bags....
"This morning here she stood all in a dead-black frock, with a widow's hat on and a long black veil streaming away from her little face.
"I stared, I tell you. I saw the situation absobloominglutely changed, in one.
"'Good Lord,' I said, 'you've been married?'
"She opened her eyes at me and said, 'Why shouldn't I?'