other afterwards. They can't keep it up. The lovers grow into friends, and the friends into enemies. Those are the enviable ones who remain friends; but it is better to marry as a friend than as a lover, because in the latter case there is a reaction and a disappointment, which may perhaps ruin the friendship. Aren't I a wise woman, Jack? I think I shall set up a general advice office."
Jack was, rather pale, and his fingers twitched nervously at his reins.
"Have you never felt that illusion?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Really, Jack," said Dodo, "you behave as if you were the inquisition. But I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. For Chesterford I never have. He is the most excellent husband, and I esteem and admire him immensely. Don't make your horse so fidgety, Jack. As I was saying, I don't see why I shouldn't tell you, considering you proposed to me once, and confessed to the same illusion yourself. Have you got over it, by the way? If I had married you, you certainly would have by this time."
There was a long pause. Then Jack said,—
"No, Dodo, I have never got over it."
The moment after he had said it, he would have given his right hand to have it unsaid. Dodo was silent for a moment, and Jack found himself noticing the tiny, trivial things about him. He observed a fly trying to alight oh his horse's ear, but the animal flicked it off with a little jerk, before it got fairly settled. He wondered whether the fly had illusions about that ear, and whether it imagined that it would be happy for ever and ever, if it could once settle there.
"You know we are saying the most frightfully unconventional things to each other," said Dodo. "I am very sorry for you, Jack, and I will administer consolation. When I said 'No' to you, I did it with real regret, with quite a different sort of feeling to that which I should have had if I had said 'No' to Chesterford. It was quite an unreasonable feeling, I couldn't define it, but I think it must have been because——"
Then Jack recovered his self-respect in a moment, by one of those strange contradictions in our nature, which urged him to stop his ears to what, a week before, he had been almost tempting her to say.
"Ah, stop, stop," he said, "you don't know what you are saying. Dodo, this won't do. Think of Chesterford."
"Chesterford and the baby," said Dodo softly. "I believe you are right, Jack. This is unprofitable. But, Jack, since we renounce that, let us still be friends. Don't let this have made any difference to us. Try and realise that it is all an illusion."
Dodo half turned towards him, with a long glance in her brown eyes, and a little smile playing about her mouth.
"Yes, yes," said Jack, laughing nervously. "I told Bertie so the other day. I have been a madman for half an hour, but that is over. Shall we turn?"
They wheeled their horses round, and cantered down the Row.
"Oh, this beautiful world," exclaimed Dodo. "You've no idea what it is to me to come out of the house again, and ride, and dance and sing. I really believe, Jack, that I enjoy things more than anyone else I know. Everything that enjoys itself appeals to me. Jack, do enjoy yourself, although we settled you mustn't appeal to me. Who is that girl standing there with the poodle? I think I shall get Chesterford to buy me a poodle. There's a woman nest her awfully like Vivy, do you see, shading her eyes with her hand. It is Vivy."
Dodo's face suddenly grew grave and frightened. She reined her horse in opposite to where Mrs. Vivian was standing.
"Quick, quick," she said, "tell me what has happened!"
Mrs. Vivian looked up at Dodo with infinite compassion in her eyes.
"Dodo, darling," she said, "give your horse to the groom. Please help her to dismount, Mr. Broxton."
Dodo got off, and Mrs. Vivian led her to a seat. Dodo had a sudden flash of remembrance of how she had sat here with Jack a year ago.
"Tell me quickly," she said again.
"My poor Dodo," said Mrs. Vivian, softly stroking the back of Dodo's hand. "You will be brave, won't you? It is worth while being brave. It is all over. The baby died this morning, half an hour after you had gone."
Dodo's first feeling was one of passionate anger and resentment. She felt she had been duped and tricked in a most unjustifiable manner. Fate had led her to expect some happy days, and she had been cruelly disappointed. It was not fair; she had been released from two tedious months of inactivity, only to be caught again. It was like a cat playing with a mouse. She wanted to revenge herself on something.
"Oh, it is too awful," she said. "Vivy, what can I do? It is cruel." Then her better nature came to her aid. "Poor Chesterford, poor dear old boy," she said simply.
Mrs. Vivian's face grew more tender.
"I am glad you thought of him," she said. "His first thought was for you. He was there all the time. As soon as it was over he said to himself, 'Please, God, help Dodo to bear it.' You bear it very well, dear. Come, the carriage is waiting."
"Oh, I can't, I can't," said Dodo passionately; "let me sit here a little while, and then go away somewhere else. I can bear it better alone. I can't see Chesterford."
"No, Dodo," she said, "you must not be cowardly. I know it is the worst part of it for you. But your duty lies with him. You must comfort him. You must make him feel that he has got you left. He is terribly broken, but he will be brave for your sake. Be brave for his."
Dodo sighed wearily.
"I suppose you are right," she said; "I will come."
She turned and looked round on to the gay scene. The Row was full of riders, and bright with the flooding sunlight.
"Oh, it is cruel," she said. "I only wanted to be happy, and I mayn't even be that. What is the good of it all, if I mayn't enjoy it? Why was the baby ever born? I wish it never had been. What good does it do anyone that I should suffer?"
Mrs. Vivian felt horribly helpless and baffled. How could she appeal to this woman, who looked at everything from only her own standpoint?
"Come, Dodo," she said.
They drove back in silence. Chesterford was standing in the hall as they entered, waiting for them. He came forward to meet Dodo.
"My poor, poor darling," he said, "it is very hard on you. But we can bear it together, Dodo."
Dodo turned from him passionately, and left him standing there.
Dodo was sitting in the window of her morning-room late on the same afternoon. She and Lord Chesterford had been together to look at the baby as it lay there, with the little features that had been racked and distorted with pain, calm and set again, as if it only slept; and Dodo had at that moment one real pang of grief. Her first impulse, as we have seen, was one of anger and impatience at the stupidity of destiny. She had been enjoying herself, in a purely animal way so intensely, at that moment when she saw Mrs. Vivian waiting for her under the trees. She was just released from a tedious period of inactivity, and inactivity was to Dodo worse than anything in the Inferno.
"I daresay I should get accustomed to being roasted," she had said once to Miss Grantham. "It really would be rather interesting seeing your fingers curling up like fried bacon, but imagine being put in a nicely-furnished room with nobody to talk to, and a view over Hyde Park one side and Melton
