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strawberry leaves. And the jewels she’s got lying about on her dressing-table! I managed to find two quid in cash as well, in the pocket of an old mackintosh – shouldn’t think she’ll miss it.’
    ‘You must be quite nicely off for cash now.’
    ‘Mm. But isn’t it extraordinary about Miss Jones. Is she an absconding duchess or a duchess’s absconding ladies’ maid or what? Anyway, I’ll stand you a drink at the Rose Revived. Eugenia should be round before long and I promised we’d meet her outside the twopenny-bar shop.’
    Eugenia, however, was in the middle of a gruelling interview with The Poor Old Female, her grandmother, who had come to hear something of her recent activities.
    ‘My child I cannot have you running round the village like a kitchen-maid,’ T.P.O.F. was saying, sadly rather than angrily, ‘talking to strangers, worse than that, accepting sweets from them. Besides, I hear that you have been riding that pony of yours astride again – you are not a baby any more, my dear, and young ladies should not ride in that way. What must the village people think of you? I blame nurse for all this and I blame myself; I suppose I can hardly blame you, Eugenia. After all, your mother was a wicked sinful woman, and bad blood always comes out sooner or later.’
    ‘I’m not bad at all,’ said Eugenia, sullenly. ‘I never do sins, and I would gladly lay down my life for the Captain.’
    Lady Chalford, who vaguely supposed that Eugenia must bereferring to the Deity, looked embarrassed. Religious fervour was, in her eyes, almost as shocking as sexual abandon, and quite likely to be associated with it. Many of the most depraved women whom she had known in her social days, had been deeply and ostentatiously religious.
    She went to church herself, of course, feeling it a patriotic duty so to do, but she had no personal feelings towards God, whom she regarded as being, conjointly with the King, head of the Church of England. However, if the girl was really obsessed by religion, a tendency which Lady Chalford had never noticed in her before, and which she presumed to be of recent origin, it might yet be possible to save her from following in her mother’s steps. Lady Chalford considered whether or not it would be advisable to call in the parson. Meanwhile she forced herself to say rather shyly, ‘The Captain was always obedient to those in authority. Try to follow His example, Eugenia.’
    ‘I don’t agree at all,’ was the reply. ‘The Captain’s ideas are most revolutionary, most, and he doesn’t have to obey anyone, being a Leader.’
    Lady Chalford knew herself to be unfitted for a theological argument on these lines. She decided that the parson would have to be called in.
    ‘Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ she said vaguely. ‘I suppose if you follow Him you won’t come to much harm. But pray don’t let me hear of you careering about the village and speaking to strange men, or you will end as your mother did.’
    ‘How did she?’ asked Eugenia, with passionate interest. Lady Chalford refused to be trapped in this manner. It was not a subject which she considered suitable for discussion, still less suitable for the ears of a young lady whom it concerned so intimately. The ugly word ‘divorce’ would have to be spoken, even uglier words understood. Sooner or later, of course, Eugenia must be informed, but the news would surely come best from the child’s own husband, if Fate were sufficiently kind to provide her with one. Lady Chalford was haunted by sad forebodings on this subject, no nice man, shefelt sure, would wish to marry the daughter of Eugenia’s mother; different propositions were more likely to be made.
    ‘Go to your room now until dinner-time. I am extremely vexed with you.’
    ‘Stupid old female,’ Eugenia muttered under her breath. She obeyed, however. Indeed, until the Social Unionists had come to fill the void of boredom that was her life, she had