alliteration," says Mr. Browne, unabashed. "Decent, dish,
dinner. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Well, I'm not," says Dulce.

"Just shows your moral depravity. If you aren't you ought to be. Three
great big D's in a breath! Shocking, shocking," says Dicky, gravely.

"What a heavenly day, and how depressing. We are never satisfied," says
Mark Gore, flinging his arms above his head with a lazy gesture, and
looking with almost comic despair at the pale-blue-and-gold glory in the
heavens above.

Fabian, who has been standing near him, lost in a daydream, starts
perceptibly at his tone, and moves as though he would go towards the
door. Then, though still a little absent, and still wrapt in the dream
from which he has sought to free himself, he looks round the room as
though in search of something. Perhaps he finds it as his eyes light
upon the window where Portia sits, because they linger there, and the
restless expression, that has characterized his face up to this,
vanishes.

He hesitates; pushes a book upon a table near him backwards and forwards
gently two or three times, as though in doubt, and then walks straight
to the window where Portia is, leans against the sash, just where he can
see the lovely, downcast face before him.

After Dicky's defection (or was it on Fabian's entrance?) Miss Vibart
returned to her neglected book, and has been buried in it ever since.
Even when Fabian comes and stands close to her, she is so engrossed with
the beauty of the story that she forgets to lift her eyes to look at
him. So determinedly do they seek the page beneath them, that Fabian
tells himself she must indeed have got to a thrilling part of her tale.

Her long, dark lashes lie like shadows on her cheeks. Her lips are
closed. The hand that lies beneath the book trembles slightly.

They are all laughing at the upper end of the room at one of Dicky's
absurdities. Down here by the far window, there is a silence marked
enough to make itself felt. I think at last even Mark Gore feels it,
because he rises from his comfortable rocking-chair with a faint yawn,
and, walking down the room, comes to anchor behind Portia's chair.

Leaning over it, he says, pleasantly:

"Is that book of James' so very charming as to make you deaf and blind
to us poor mortals?"

"I am never deaf or blind to you," says Portia, sweetly, glancing up at
him over her shoulder. Her rounded chin is slightly tilted, a soft smile
curves her lips.