Croyle their croquet mallets. Dennis
Brown led them by a back way up to the head of the broad stairs. Here a
gallery ran along one side of the hall. Voices rose up to them from the
floor above the music of the gramophone.

Joan's: "That's the twinkle."

Luttrell's: "It's pretty difficult."

"Try it again," said Joan. "Oh, that's ever so much better."

"I shall never dare to dance it with any one else," said Luttrell.

"I really don't mind very much about that," Joan responded dryly.

Millie Splay could hardly believe her ears. Cautiously she and her party
advanced on tiptoe to the balustrade and looked down. Yes, there the
pair of them were, now laughing, now in desperate earnest, practising
the fox-trot to the music of the gramophone.

"Do I hold you right?" asked Harry.

"Well--I shan't break, you know," Joan answered demurely, and then with
a little sigh, "That's better."

Under her breath Stella Croyle murmured passionately, "Oh, you minx!"

As the record ran out a storm of applause burst from the gallery.

"Oh, Joan, Joan," cried Harold Jupp, shaking his head reproachfully.
"There's the poet kicked right across the room."

"Where?" asked Harry Luttrell, looking round for the book.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Joan impatiently. "It's only an old volume
of Browning."

Cries of "Shame" broke indignantly from the race-goers, and Joan
received them with imperturbable indifference. Harry Luttrell, however,
went on his knees and discovering the book beneath a distant sofa,
carefully dusted it.

"Did you ever read 'How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix'?"
he asked.

The audience in the gallery waited in dead silence for Joan Whitworth's
answer. It came unhesitatingly clear and in a voice of high enthusiasm.

"Isn't it the most wonderful poem he ever wrote?"

The gallery broke into screams, catcalls, hisses and protests against
Joan's shameless recantation.

"It's Browning, of course, but it's not Browning at all, if you
understand me," Dennis Brown exclaimed with every show of indignation;
and the whole party trooped away again to their tennis and their
croquet.

Harry Luttrell placed the book upon a table and turned to Joan.

"Now what would you like to do?" he asked.

Joan shrugged her shoulders.

"We might cut into the next tennis set," she said doubtfully.

"You could hardly play in those shoes," said Harry Luttrell.

Joan contemplated a heel of formidable height. Oh, where