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flashed out.
    â€œOh, no,” she said. “He’s attractive. Most attractive. Rather unscrupulous, too, I should imagine. But then as far as that goes, I’m unscrupulous too!”
    Her smile hardened. She looked up at her husband.
    â€œWe’re not going to be beaten, Jeremy,” she said. “There’s bound to be some way…if I have to rob a bank!”

Three
    â€œM oney!” said Lynn.
    Rowley Cloade nodded. He was a big square young man with a brick-red skin, thoughtful blue eyes and very fair hair. He had a slowness that seemed more purposeful than ingrained. He used deliberation as others use quickness of repartee.
    â€œYes,” he said, “everything seems to boil down to money these days.”
    â€œBut I thought farmers had done so well during the war?”
    â€œOh, yes—but that doesn’t do you any permanent good. In a year we’ll be back where we were—with wages up, workers unwilling, everybody dissatisfied and nobody knowing where they are. Unless, of course, you can farm in a really big way. Old Gordon knew. That was where he was preparing to come in.”
    â€œAnd now—” Lynn asked.
    Rowley grinned.
    â€œAnd now Mrs. Gordon goes to London and spends a couple of thousand on a nice mink coat.”
    â€œIt’s—it’s wicked!”
    â€œOh, no—” He paused and said: “I’d rather like to give you a mink coat, Lynn—”
    â€œWhat’s she like, Rowley?” She wanted to get a contemporary judgment.
    â€œYou’ll see her tonight. At Uncle Lionel’s and Aunt Kathie’s party.”
    â€œYes, I know. But I want you to tell me. Mums says she’s half-witted?”
    Rowley considered.
    â€œWell—I shouldn’t say intellect was her strong point. But I think really she only seems half-witted because she’s being so frightfully careful.”
    â€œCareful? Careful about what?”
    â€œOh, just careful. Mainly, I imagine, about her accent—she’s got quite a brogue, you know, or else about the right fork, and any literary allusions that might be flying around.”
    â€œThen she really is—quite—well, uneducated?”
    Rowley grinned.
    â€œOh, she’s not a lady, if that’s what you mean. She’s got lovely eyes, and a very good complexion—and I suppose old Gordon fell for that, with her extraordinary air of being quite unsophisticated. I don’t think it’s put on—though of course you never know. She just stands around looking dumb and letting David run her.”
    â€œDavid?”
    â€œThat’s the brother. I should say there’s nothing much aboutsharp practice he doesn’t know!” Rowley added: “He doesn’t like any of us much.”
    â€œWhy should he?” said Lynn sharply, and added as he looked at her, slightly surprised, “I mean you don’t like him. ”
    â€œI certainly don’t. You won’t either. He’s not our sort.”
    â€œYou don’t know who I like, Rowley, or who I don’t! I’ve seen a lot of the world in the last three years. I—I think my outlook has broadened.”
    â€œYou’ve seen more of the world than I have, that’s true.”
    He said it quietly—but Lynn looked up sharply.
    There had been something—behind those even tones.
    He returned her glance squarely, his face unemotional. It had never, Lynn remembered, been easy to know exactly what Rowley was thinking.
    What a queer topsy-turvy world it was, thought Lynn. It used to be the man who went to the wars, the woman who stayed at home. But here the positions were reversed.
    Of the two young men, Rowley and Johnnie, one had had perforce to stay on the farm. They had tossed for it and Johnnie Vavasour had been the one to go. He had been killed almost at once—in Norway. All through the years of war Rowley had never been more than a mile or two from