It was one of the last days of July, cooled and freshened by a touch of rain and dropping back again to a languorous warmth.

London looked at its summer best, rain-washed and sun-lit, with the maximum of coming and going in its more fashionable streets.
Cicely Yeovil sat in a screened alcove of the Anchorage Restaurant, a feeding-ground which had lately sprung into favour.

Opposite her sat Ronnie, confronting the ruins of what had been a dish of prawns in aspic.
Cool and clean and fresh-coloured, he was good to look on in the eyes of his companion, and yet, perhaps, there was a ruffle in her soul that called for some answering disturbance on the part of that superbly tranquil young man, and certainly called in vain.

Cicely had set up for herself a fetish of onyx with eyes of jade, and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable but perfectly natural hunger for something of flesh and blood.

It was the religion of her life to know exactly what she wanted and to see that she got it, but there was no possible guarantee against her occasionally experiencing a desire for something else.