So thought I, looking from my study-table at the pretty picture some thirty yards, away.

And once again--pleasant self repetition of history--Jaffery was expected.

Doria, fresh from Nice, had spent a night at her father's house and had come down to us the evening before to complete her convalescence.

She had wanted to go straight to the flat in St.John's Wood and begin her life anew with Adrian's beloved ghost, and she had issued orders to servants to have everything in readiness for her arrival, but Barbara had intervened and so had Mr.Jornicroft, a man of limited sympathies and brutal common sense.

All of us, including Jaffery, who seemed to regard advice to Doria as a presumption only equalled by that of a pilgrim on his road to Mecca giving hints to Allah as to the way to run the universe, had urged her to give up the abode of tragic memories and find a haven of quietude elsewhere.