Diana was left looking down at her handiwork.

Horrid, horrid vase!” she whispered, and bent to pick up one of the pieces. “Beastly, spiteful thing! I’m glad I broke you!”

MRS. GRAFTON exhibited no surprise when her daughter walked into the drawing room of her flat in Brook Street. She merely raised her eyebrows slightly, and even went on with her knitting.

“Hullo, Diana!” she said.

Diana pulled her hat off and threw it on to a chair.

“I’ve left George!” she said jerkily.

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Grafton placidly.

“What’s more, I won’t ever go back to him!”

“What a brute!” remarked her mother, unrolling some more silk.

“He is! He’s—” She broke off and looked suspiciously at her mother. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

“They always are,” said Mrs. Grafton. “Do you propose to stay here?”

“Of course if y—you don’t w-want me either—”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all, my dear. Only I must have your bed aired. By the way, why have you left George, apart from his being a brute?”

Her daughter collapsed on to the sofa and began to hunt for her handkerchief. The day’s calamities passed before her eyes.

“I slept badly and woke with a headache, Mumsy,” she began.

Mrs. Grafton looked up, once more with raised brows.

“No doubt it’s a sufficient reason," she remarked calmly.

“That’s not all! The eggs were hard-boiled for breakfast, and George was hateful about it.”

“So you left him? I see.”

“N-no, that wasn’t the reason,” said Diana, doubtfully. “The—the eggs began it, but I’ve left him because he doesn’t care for me.”

“Doesn’t he, really?” Mrs. Grafton was politely interested. “I wonder why he married you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know! He only cares for his china. I—I smashed a Ming vase this morning—on purpose!”

“I hope he shook you!”

“You—Mother, don't you realise—”

“What?”

“I—I think you might be a little more sympathetic!”

“Oh, are you looking for sympathy?”

“No, I’m not!” said her daughter, rising. “I think I’ll go and unpack my things.”

“I should,” said Mrs. Grafton.

Mr. Grafton was inclined to be worried over his daughter’s return, but his wife assured him that there was no need for him either to “speak seriously to Diana,” or to sally forth in search of George’s blood.

“Well, but dear, hadn’t I better go and see George?”

“Certainly not,” said his wife. “George will come here when he has recovered. In the meantime a little uncertainty won’t do either of them any harm. You leave it to me.”

Mr. Grafton had never dreamed of disputing his wife’s decisions; he was quite content to leave Diana’s future in her hands. Mrs. Grafton started to devise a plan.

Secretly Diana was rather ashamed of having deserted her husband, and she would have been overjoyed had he appeared that evening to take her home. But he did not appear. Instead he sat humped over the library fire with his head in his hands and a pipe between his teeth.