oncealing a faint sense of
irritation.

He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."

"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.

The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly
assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at
her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his
own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded
herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the
twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her
side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of
shame.

With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett's letter. It
commenced "Dearest Muriel," and proceeded at once in terms of flowing
elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.

"In according our consent," wrote Lady Bassett, "Sir Reginald and I
have not the smallest scruple or hesitation. Only, dearest, for Blake
Grange's sake as well as for your own, make quite sure _this time_
that your mind is fully made up, and your choice final."

When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her
voice, and she lifted a flushed face.

"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate Lady
Bassett."

Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to
the letter before he could reply.

It went on to express regret that the writer could not herself
return to England for the summer to assist her in the purchase of her
trousseau and to chaperon her back to India in the autumn; but her
sister, Mrs. Langdale, who lived in London, would she was sure, be
delighted to undertake the part of adviser in the first case, and in
the second she would doubtless be able to find among her many friends
who would be travelling East for the winter, one who would take charge
of her. No reference was made to Daisy till the end of the letter,
when the formal hope was expressed that Mrs. Musgrave's health had
benefited by the change.

"She dares to disapprove of Daisy for some reason," Muriel said,
closing the letter with the rapidity of exasperation.

Grange did not ask why. He was engrossed in brushing a speck of mud
from his sleeve, and she was not sure that he even heard her remark.

"You--I suppose you are not going to bother about a trousseau yet
then?" he asked rather awkwardly.

She shook her head with vehemence. "No, no, of course not. Why sho