repeating in a dreadful
whisper, moistening her dry lips with her tongue between her sentences.

"Oh, don't think that I am standing aside out of pity," Joan answered
her. "To-morrow I shall be impossible as a wife for Harry Luttrell." The
words fell upon ears which did not hear. It would not have mattered if
Stella had heard. Since Harry Luttrell was that night asking Joan to
marry him, the hopes upon which she had so long been building, which
Jenny Prask had done so much to nurse and encourage, withered and
crumbled in an instant.

"I must go back and dance," said Joan with a shiver.

She left Stella Croyle standing in the room like one possessed with
visions of terrible things. Her tragic face and moving lips were to
haunt Joan for many a month afterwards. She went out by the window and
ran down the drive to the spot where she had left Miranda's car half-way
between the lodge and the house. The gates had been set open that night
against the return of the party from Harrel. Joan drove back again under
the great over-arching trees of the road. It was just ten o'clock when
she slipped into the ball-room and was claimed by a neighbour for a
dance.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE RANK AND FILE

Martin Hillyard crammed a year's enjoyment into the early hours of that
night. He danced a great deal and had supper a good many times; and even
the girl who had passed the season of 1914 in London and said languidly,
"Tell me more," before he had opened his mouth, failed to ruffle his
enjoyment.

"If I did, you would scream for your mother," he replied, "and I should
be turned out of the house and Sir Chichester would lose his position in
the county. No, I'll tell you less. That means we'll go and have some
supper."

He led a subdued maiden into the supper-room and from that moment his
enjoyment began to wane. For, at a little table near to hand, sat Joan
Whitworth and Harry Luttrell, and it was clear to him from the distress
upon their faces that their smooth courtship had encountered its
obstacles. A spot of anger, indeed, seemed to burn in Joan's cheeks.
They hardly spoke at all.

Half an hour later, he came face to face with Joan in a corridor.

"I have been looking for you for a long while," she cried in a quick,
agitated voice. "Are you free for this dance?"

"Yes."

Martin Hillyard lied without compunction.

"Then will you take me into the garden?"

He found a couple of chairs in a corner of the terrace out o