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that well-meaning, painstaking but virtually unread novelist, John Sherren.
    When they were alone together he teased his aunt gently.
    “I believe you’re developing a secret vice,” he had said.
    “I suppose I seem a very old lady to you, though I am ten years younger than Clara, but even as you get near the end of your life you may find compensations you never dreamed of. Of course, it’s different for you, you’re still quite a young man with, we hope, a great many years ahead of you. I dare say you’re a little disappointed sometimes, about your work, I mean. But, don’t you see, one day you may be as well known as—as Charles Dickens.”
    “Oh, come, Aunt Isabel,” John rallied her. “You know you don’t really think that, nor do I.”
    “But that’s just my point.” She was extraordinarily urgent. “It may be just the thing one doesn’t anticipate at all, that seems absolutely fantastic, that may be waiting for you around the next corner. The important thing is to be prepared. Don’t look over your shoulder at the past all the time. I’ve done so much of that in my life, and then of course you miss what’s coming toward you. And though you can look backwards, you can’t walk backwards.”
    He said, “Something’s happened to you. Aunt Isabel. I can see that.”
    At once she seemed apprehensive. “Oh, no, dear. That is—don’t say anything like that to Clara, will you? It’s just that—I begin to wonder if I haven’t perhaps been rather foolish with my life, 1 mean. It isn’t enough to be just negative, one should be positive …”
    John didn’t put his thoughts into words, but he felt pretty certain his Aunt Isabel wasn’t going to the cinema alone. Those ideas she had been voicing had been put into her mind by someone else.
    But when he tried to draw her out a little she took fright and wouldn’t tell him anything.
    John had no intention of raising the matter with Clara; he knew she wouldn’t confide in him even if she knew anything, which was doubtful. Instead, he decided to have a word with Locket.
    Locket, however, proved as unhelpful as even Clara could have been. “I have my work to do, Mr. John. I don’t have time to go
    around noticing whether people look different today from what they did yesterday. But if Miss Isabel is a bit brighter, you leave her be. She’s had a hard row to hoe all these years, and she deserves any bit of fun that may be coming to her.”
    John was masculine enough to think that old ladies of sixty should be past thinking about fun.
    “I notice she sits out on the balcony now,” he went on. “That’s a change.”
    “A good thing, too,” snapped Locket.
    “So long as she doesn’t get giddy.”
    “She won’t get giddy the way you mean.” She laughed abruptly, and bustled off.
    The same night, when Isabel went onto her balcony she was startled to find her nephew already there.
    “I didn’t frighten you, I hope,” he asked with some concern. “I felt I must discover what it was that lured you up here night after night. Are you watching for a new star?”
    She smiled at him in a warm and trusting way. “Clara was right about the balcony,” she said, “though that doesn’t mean she’s always been right about everything.” Her face took on a reminiscent look. Then, as though she shrugged aside all memories of the past that were not altogether agreeable to her, she went on in her usual eager tone: “It is delightful to sit here looking out to sea. I like to think of all the people sailing back to their lovers, the young ones going out to seek their fortune.”
    John leaned forward. “I believe I can actually see the lights of France. It seems so close, doesn’t it?” The next moment his voice changed. “Take care, Aunt Isabel. I don’t think this balcony is very safe.”
    “Oh, come, John, you’re trying to alarm me. Clara would be very cross with you if she were here. She’s been trying to induce me to sit out here for weeks and