the old lady—that she should have taken the trouble of going far back into O'Hara's past to find some definite thing against him. She did not doubt the ultimate truth of Aunt Cassie's insinuation. Aunt Cassie did not lie deliberately; there was always a grain of truth in her implications, though sometimes the poor grain lay buried so deeply beneath exaggerations that it was almost impossible to discover it. And a thing like that might easily be true about O'Hara. With a man like him you couldn't expect women to play the rôle they played with a man like Anson.
"It's only on account of what people will say," repeated Aunt Cassie.
"I've almost come to the conclusion that what people say doesn't really matter any longer. . . ."
Aunt Cassie began suddenly to pick a bouquet from the border beside her. "Oh, it's not you I'm worrying about, Olivia dear. But we have to consider others sometimes. . . . There's Sybil and Anson, and even the very name of Pentland. There's never been any such suspicion attached to it . . . ever."
It was incredible (thought Olivia) that any one would make such a statement, incredible anywhere else in the world. She wanted to ask, "What about your brother and old Mrs. Soames?" And in view of those letters that lay locked in her dressing-table. . . .
At that moment lunch was announced by Peters' appearance in the doorway. Olivia turned to Aunt Cassie, "You're staying, of course."
"No, I must go. You weren't expecting me."
So Olivia began the ancient game, played for so many years, of pressing Aunt Cassie to stay to lunch.
"It makes no difference," she said, "only another plate." And so on through a whole list of arguments that she had memorized long ago. And at last Aunt Cassie, with the air
