It was a curious relationship. Margery was perhaps thirty-five, a rather quiet woman, with two small daughters. She was an attractive woman, with a head of prematurely white hair which was very becoming, and she obviously idolized her husband. But oddly enough she did not ride.

“I’m afraid of horses,” she told me once, with her quick, shy smile. “It seems queer, doesn’t it, with Julian so interested in the Hunt Club. He’s very nice about it, but after watching me fall off for a month or two after we were married he gave it up.”

Maud’s attitude to her was always that of an elderly sister. I think, too, she realized that Margery was lonely at times, for she took very little part in the life of the Hill. But months later I was to think of them at that time: Maud big, cheerful and self-confident, with her hearty laugh; Margery small, shy and uncertain, and both ignorant of the story which was eventually to tie them so closely together.

I was kept busy during those early weeks. Not only with dinners. There were the people who wandered in late in the afternoons to drink highballs or cocktails on the terrace or—in bad weather—to play indoor tennis in the playhouse. The summer was always the season, both to the Hill and in Beverly. People went away in winter, to Florida, to California, or to Europe. In summer they stayed at home, absorbed in business, in gardens, in golf or tennis.

And last summer was particularly gay. It seemed to me that we entertained constantly. I remember a garden party late in June, with a marquee on the lawn and Audrey dancing with Tony and looking up at him from under a broad hat which set off her beauty like a frame. There was a series of Sunday breakfasts for the riding crowd also, and in July Maud, who liked children, invited all the youngsters from the Hill and village families, and turned over the playhouse to them. She had a Punch and Judy show as well as a conjurer for them, but it was not an unqualified success. The little darlings took to throwing the peas which accompanied their creamed chicken, and at the last minute I had to leap into the pool in my best summer dress and rescue a five-year-old who had tumbled in.

I saw little of Tony during those first two months or so. The mills were working overtime. When I did see him he was either surrounded by people or on the way somewhere. He was always friendly, however. He would greet me with a grin.

“Still crawling under furniture and using bad language?”

“No. I go upstairs and bite the pillows on my bed. It’s easier.”

He would laugh and go on.

I heard that he was seeing Audrey a good deal, but weeks passed without my seeing even Lydia. Now and then I hurried up to town for clothes—Maud had at last mentioned salary, and it was a good one—but there was very little time.