ing the fourth hostess--when Mr.
Wilkins, balancing his sentences and being admirably clear and enjoying
the sound of his own cultured voice, explained the position in this
manner to Lady Caroline, Briggs sat and said never a word.

A deep melancholy invaded Scrap. The symptoms of the incipient
grabber were all there and only too familiar, and she knew that if
Briggs stayed her rest-cure might be regarded as over.

Then Kate Lumley occurred to her. She caught at Kate as at a
straw.

"It would have been delightful," she said, faintly smiling at
Briggs--she could not in decency not smile, at least a little, but even
a little betrayed the dimple, and Briggs's eyes became more fixed than
ever--"I'm only wondering if there is room."

"Yes, there is," said Lotty. "There's Kate Lumley's room."

"I thought," said Scrap to Mrs. Fisher, and it seemed to Briggs
that he had never heard music till now, "your friend was expected
immediately."

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Fisher--with an odd placidness, Scrap
thought.

"Miss Lumley," said Mr. Wilkins, "--or should I," he inquired of
Mrs. Fisher, "say Mrs.?"

"Nobody has ever married Kate," said Mrs. Fisher complacently.

"Quite so. Miss Lumley does not arrive to-day in any case, Lady
Caroline, and Mr. Briggs has--unfortunately, if I may say so--to
continue his journey to-morrow, so that his staying would in no way
interfere with Miss Lumley's possible movements."

"Then of course I join in the invitation," said Scrap, with what
was to Briggs the most divine cordiality.

He stammered something, flushing scarlet, and Scrap thought,
"Oh," and turned her head away; but that merely made Briggs acquainted
with her profile, and if there existed anything more lovely than
Scrap's full face it was her profile.

Well, it was only for this one afternoon and evening. He would
leave, no doubt, the first thing in the morning. It took hours to get
to Rome. Awful if he hung on till the night train. She had a feeling
that the principal express to Rome passed through at night. Why hadn't
that woman Kate Lumley arrived yet? She had forgotten all about her,
but now she remembered she was to have been invited a fortnight ago.
What had become of her? This man, once let in, would come and see her
in London, would haunt the places she was likely to go to. He had the
makings, her experienced eye could see, of a passionately persistent
grabber.

"If," thought Mr. Wilkins, observing Briggs's