"D'you know what I found, Miss Olwen? Blessed if I didn't stick my fingers into my belt pocket here, and feel something soft. I brought it out. It was that little mascot of yours. She asked me quickly what it was.
"'Oh,' I said, 'something a girl put there once, to bring me luck,' and I stuck it back again.
"'Oh,' she said. I saw her looking at that pocket.
"Then she said, 'What about going for that walk we've heard so much about?'
"'Right you are,' I says, pulling myself together. 'I'm ready if you are, Mrs. Robinson.'
"Then she said, 'No; I'm not quite. I shall have to keep you five minutes, not longer.'
"She popped through a door at the other end of the room and left me gazing at a big photograph in a silver frame on her table with violets in front of it. 'Yours, JIM,' on it. Him, of course. Fine-looking chap in R. F. C. uniform. I didn't wonder she'd taken him. Anyhow, he'd had a short life and a merry; a topping time! Marrying her, and then getting shot down in action before he knew he was for it. I was envying him when the door opened and in she came again——
"By Jove, she had done a quick change in five minutes and no mistake!
"She'd got out of the widow's weeds again and into khaki the same as yesterday, except that there was nothing on her curls, and she'd put on a short skirt and little brown brogues and a pair of those silk stockings she bought yesterday; and she came straight up to me and said quietly, 'Now, look here——why were you all upset when you came in? What's put you out? My being a widow?'
"'No,' I said, straight. 'It wasn't just that, but never mind.'