He said nothing else, but to Joyce that Oh! was one of the most comforting things she had ever heard. There was everything in it that couldn’t be put into words.

After a minute or two he said jerkily:

‘Matter of fact, I had a dog. Died two years ago. Was with a crowd of people at the time who couldn’t understand making heavy weather about it. Pretty rotten to have to carry on as though nothing had happened.’

Joyce nodded.

‘I know–’ said Mr Allaby.

He took her hand, squeezed it hard and dropped it. He went out of the little cubicle. Joyce followed in a minute or two and fixed up various details with the ladylike person. When she arrived home. Mrs Barnes met her on the doorstep with that relish in gloom typical of her class.

‘They’ve sent the poor little doggie’s body home,’ she announced. ‘It’s up in your room. I was saying to Barnes, and he’s ready to dig a nice little hole in the back garden–’

Magnolia Blossom

Magnolia Blossom

I

Vincent Easton was waiting under the clock at Victoria Station. Now and then he glanced up at it uneasily. He thought to himself: ‘How many other men have waited here for a woman who didn’t come?’

A sharp pang shot through him. Supposing that Theo didn’t come, that she had changed her mind? Women did that sort of thing. Was he sure of her–had he ever been sure of her? Did he really know anything at all about her? Hadn’t she puzzled him from the first? There had seemed to be two women–the lovely, laughing creature who was Richard Darrell’s wife, and the other–silent, mysterious, who had walked by his side in the garden of Haymer’s Close. Like a magnolia flower–that was how he thought of her–perhaps because it was under the magnolia tree that they had tasted their first rapturous, incredulous kiss. The air had been sweet with the scent of magnolia bloom, and one or two petals, velvety-soft and fragrant, had floated down, resting on that upturned face that was as creamy and as soft and as silent as they. Magnolia blossom–exotic, fragrant, mysterious.

That had been a fortnight ago–the second day he had met her. And now he was waiting for her to come to him forever. Again incredulity shot through him. She wouldn’t come. How could he ever have believed it? It would be giving up so much. The beautiful Mrs Darrell couldn’t do this sort of thing quietly. It was bound to be a nine days’ wonder, a far-reaching scandal that would never quite be forgotten. There were better, more expedient ways of doing these things–a discreet divorce, for instance.