me.
'I'm afraid you'll find it's only since I've been here that Janet has
broken loose and taken in an extra copy.'

'Oh, it's on your account, is it?' he grumbled, but the edge had gone
out of his ill-humour. 'I suppose you _have_ to keep up with politics or
you couldn't keep the ball rolling as you did last night?'

'Yes,' said Vida, with an innocent air. 'It is well known what
superhuman efforts we have to make before we can qualify ourselves to
talk to men.'

'Hm!' grumbled Fox-Moore. 'I never saw _you_ at a loss.'

'You did last night.'

'No, I didn't. I saw you getting on like a house afire with Haycroft and
the beguiling Borrodaile. It's a pity all the decent men are married.'

Mrs. Fox-Moore allowed her own coffee to get cold while she hovered over
the sacred rite of scientific tea-making. Mr. Fox-Moore, talking to Vida
about the Foreign Office reception, to which they had all gone on after
the Tunbridges' dinner, kept watching with a kind of half-absent-minded
scorn his wife's fussily punctilious pains to prepare the brew 'his
way.' When all was ready and the tea steaming on its way to him in the
hands of its harassed maker, he curtly declined it, got up, and left the
room. A moment after, the shutting of the front door announced the
beginning of yet another of the master's absences.

'How can you stand it?' said Vida, under her breath.

'Oh, I don't mind his going away,' said the other, dully.

'No; but his coming back!'

'One of the things I'm grateful to Donald for'--she spoke as if there
were plenty more--'he is very good to you, Vida.' And in her tone there
was criticism of the beneficiary.

'You mean, he's not as rude to me as he is to you?'

'He is even forbearing. And you--you rather frighten me sometimes.'

'I see that.'

'It would be very terrible for _me_ if he took it into his head not to
like you.'

'If he took it into his head to forbid your having me here, you mean.'

'But even when you aren't polite he just laughs. Still, he's not a
patient man.'

'Do you think you have to tell me that?'

'No, dear, only to remind you not to try him too far. For my sake, Vida,
don't ever do that.'

She put out her yellow, parchment-like hand, and her sister closed hers
over it an instant.

'Here's the hot milk,' said Vida. 'Now we'll have some more coffee.'

'Are you coming with me to-day?' Mrs. Fox-Moore asked quite cheerfully
for her as the servant shut the door.

'Oh, is this Frid