Coffee over, we moved to the window which opened on a little back garden--the room was on the ground floor--in which grew prickly pear and mimosa, and newly flowering heliotrope.

I don't know why I should mention this, except that some scenes impress themselves, for no particular reason, on the memory, while others associated with more important incidents fade into vagueness.

I picked a bunch of heliotrope which she pinned at her bosom.
"Lola," I said, "I want to speak to you seriously." She smiled wanly: "Do we ever speak otherwise these dreadful days ?" "It's about Dale.

Read this," said I, and I handed her Lady Kynnersley's letter.

She read it through and returned it to me.
"Well ?" "I asked you a week or two ago what you were going to do with your life," I said.