The Cardew mansion showed window-boxes at each window, filled by the
florist with spring flowers, to be replaced later by summer ones.
A potted primrose sat behind the plate glass of the Eagle Pharmacy,
among packets of flower seeds and spring tonics, its leaves
occasionally nibbled by the pharmacy cat, out of some atavistic
craving survived through long generations of city streets.
The children's playground near the Lily furnace was ready; Howard
Cardew himself had overseen the locations of the swings and
chute-the-chutes. And at Friendship an army of workers was
sprinkling and tamping the turf of the polo field. After two years
of war, there was to be polo again that spring and early summer.
The Cherry Hill Hunt team was still intact, although some of the
visiting outfits had been badly shot to pieces by the war. But
the war was over. It lay behind, a nightmare to be forgotten as
soon as possible. It had left its train of misery and debt, but
--spring had come.
On a pleasant Monday, Lily motored out to the field with Pink
Denslow. It had touched her that he still wanted her, and it had
offered an escape from her own worries. She was fighting a sense
of failure that day.
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