the adjacent West estate seemed to take on a particularly objectionable coloring.
As for her Uncle Chandler, he punctiliously dressed for dinner, and punctiliously sat at one end of the big dining-room table while Teddie just as solemnly sat at the other—though she did once emerge sufficiently from her self-absorption to remark that they looked exactly like two palm-trees on the edge of the Sahara. She also once ventured to ask if Watkins really oughtn't to have a passport when he carried the joint all the way from her end of the table down to the old Major's end of the table. And her Uncle Chandler brightened up sufficiently to inquire if he hadn't better order a taxi to run them out to the terrace for coffee, so abysmally vast seemed the distances in that dolorous and empty house.
If the old Major remained suspiciously meek and long-suffering during these days of trial, it must be acknowledged that he made divers and undivulged trips in to the City, whence he returned oddly fortified in spirit and beguilingly abstracted in man-
