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It was Mrs Sarah who—in the face of these sudden happenings—displayed the most unexpected of attitudes. One mother did not know, and the other refused to know more than the essentials, and she had her reasons. As a responsible woman Mrs Sarah might have mounted her responsibility, and demanded a proper publicity, but she did nothing of the kind. Having formed her own opinion of young St. George, and knowing her daughter as she did, she refused either to meddle or to advise. There are occasions when youth is best left without interference.

On the morning of the particular day Mrs Sarah kissed her daughter, and pushed four five-pound notes into Kitty’s vanity-bag. Lads are apt to be short of funds.

“You may find that useful. Mind you,—my dear,—I don’t know anything about the other side of the picture.”

Kitty was trying on a hat.

“You mean—his mother and No. 77?”

“Exactly. I have as much right to assume that I’m almost as ignorant as she is. It’s your affair, and his, poppet.”

Kitty turned and looked at her mother. Mrs Sarah was smiling, but how much there was behind that smile Kitty could guess.

“You are a dear. You have loved me all these years, and then when I go off like this—.”

“I go on loving you, poppet. I did what you are doing. Besides, I’m not losing you all at once.”

“You’ll never lose me. You couldn’t. You’ve never tried to clutch at us.”

They held each other close for half a minute. Mrs Sarah’s face was all creases, and Kitty’s eyes were wet.

“There,—there,” said her mother. “You’ll know how to spend the day. It’s his last day, poor lad.”

“We are going out into the country.”

Though Kitty did not fully appreciate the scope of her mother’s shrewdness, for Mrs Sarah had looked into Debrett, and cast a considering glance at Cardigan Square. O, yes, there would be storms. The mildest of women might be expected to resent an alliance between Vernor Street and Cardigan Square, and young St. George’s mother—judging by his reservations—was not a mild woman. O, very well! If one mother flew to arms, the other mother could be ready for her, and able to assert that she—Mrs Greenwood—had had no more to do with the romance than had Mrs St. George. Even less so. Moreover, Mrs Sarah was not going to apologize for Kitty. By no means. The man who was marrying Kitty was a damned lucky fellow. Other mothers could sit up and take notice. If any favours were being conferred, that wholesome and sturdy and lovable young person—her daughter—was conferring them.

Which—as a matter of fact—was true, though none of the potential disputants were likely to realize how true it was, until other things had happened.

The day was kind, one of those illusive and sunny days inserted into the wet, raw greyness of an English April. Married just an hour, they took a train to Dorking, and walked out to Wootton Hatch. They lunched there, Kitty in a jade-green jumper and a black skirt, her head the colour of an autumn lime leaf. Their feet touched under the table, and their eyes touched glances above it. Her solid little face glowing devoutly contrasted with his freckled and more mobile lightness; he smiled much more than she did; her very dark eyes, glimmering now and again, were—in the main—immensely serious.

“Mrs St. George!”

He glanced at her ring. Very solemnly in the train and in an empty first class carriage she had kissed that ring.

“That’s what it means to me,—you. I have had dozens of men silly about me. That’s why this is so serious.”

“Dozens!”

“O, don’t be afraid. I am as new as this ring. I have never cared for anybody before.”

“Not a soul?”

“No, not like this.”

Afterwards they wandered up to Leith Hill where the gorse was aflame among the pines, and sat on a grass slope below the brick tower, and looked out over all that peaceful country. Its soft greens melted into a still softer blue; the downs were very dim in the distance; the Sussex woods black and brown in the pale sunlight. Birds sang.

“You wouldn’t think,” said he.

She sat close to him. There were a few other people there, but who cared? Why should one care? His left arm encircled her, her hand grasping the strap of his Sam Browne belt. His right arm lay across her shoulders, and his fingers touched her hair.

“You have been good to me.”

“Because I wanted to, dear lad. When you come back—.”

She was aware of a sudden stillness, a tenseness.

“When you come back—.”

She repeated the words with deliberation and conviction, gazing steady-eyed at England spread below her.

“It can’t last for ever. Suppose you will go on working?”

“Of course.”

“The mater allows me five hundred a year. Then—there is my pay. There’s no need, you know,—unless—.”

“I like it. Besides—I’m going to help mother—till you come back. Besides, haven’t you thought—?”

“Of course I’ve thought. You have made me think. You’re so splendidly independent.”

“Am I?”

“You have taught me—tons—in a week. If I come back—.”

“When—you come back.”

“I shall have to get a job of some kind. A man ought to have a job.”

“He must.”

“We couldn’t live on—.”

Her strong little arm contracted.

“Not for a moment. I wouldn’t.—I don’t mind having to put up with things, our own things. We have got to run our own show, Alex.”

“You dear,” he said, and kissed her.

The nature of his job, his ability to fill a niche in the social scheme of things,—lay with the future. It would have to be faced, and so would the woman who had a passion for bossing people. Kitty had not married Alex St. George for his mother’s money, and she had no intention of being bossed by his mother. No, not for a moment. But Kitty had a happy and determined way of putting any future problem away in a cupboard and turning the key on it until that particular problem had to be taken out and put in the oven. She could concentrate on the present. She did not go round to-morrow’s corner to look for trouble. When she met it she would square her chin at it.

“I can send you home ten pounds a week—you know.”

“You need not send me a farthing unless you want to.”

“Of course I shall want to.”

“Then—I’ll bank it. It may come in useful later on. I have a banking account of my own.”

“Have you?”

“Corah and I have a share in the business. I bank with the Midland in Haymarket.”

He seemed to think it wonderful that she should have a banking account of her own. In fact, everything about his young wife was wonderful to Alex St. George. She had such sense, such a head on her shoulders, and such a comely head and such plump and pretty shoulders. And she understood him. By god—how she understood him! How was it?

He asked her, and she twisted her fingers into his belt.

“Oh,—I don’t know! Directly I saw you—. It’s caring, I suppose. And I’m not exactly a fool.”