ed spectator of a costly show got up for his
private entertainment. It was not until he heard her, one morning,
grumble a little at the increasing heat and the menace of mosquitoes,
that he said, quite as if they had talked the matter over long before,
and finally settled it: "The moor will be ready any time after the first
of August."

Nick fancied that Susy coloured a little, and drew herself up more
defiantly than usual as she sent a pebble skimming across the dying
ripples at their feet.

"You'll be a lot cooler in Scotland," Fred added, with what, for him,
was an unusual effort at explicitness.

"Oh, shall we?" she retorted gaily; and added with an air of mystery
and importance, pivoting about on her high heels: "Nick's got work to do
here. It will probably keep us all summer."

"Work? Rot! You'll die of the smells." Gillow stared perplexedly skyward
from under his tilted hat-brim; and then brought out, as from the depth
of a rankling grievance: "I thought it was all understood."

"Why," Nick asked his wife that night, as they re-entered Ellie's cool
drawing-room after a late dinner at the Lido, "did Gillow think it was
understood that we were going to his moor in August?" He was conscious
of the oddness of speaking of their friend by his surname, and reddened
at his blunder.

Susy had let her lace cloak slide to her feet, and stood before him
in the faintly-lit room, slim and shimmering-white through black
transparencies.

She raised her eyebrows carelessly. "I told you long ago he'd asked us
there for August."

"You didn't tell me you'd accepted."

She smiled as if he had said something as simple as Fred. "I accepted
everything--from everybody!"

What could he answer? It was the very principle on which their bargain
had been struck. And if he were to say: "Ah, but this is different,
because I'm jealous of Gillow," what light would such an answer shed on
his past? The time for being jealous-if so antiquated an attitude were
on any ground defensible-would have been before his marriage, and before
the acceptance of the bounties which had helped to make it possible. He
wondered a little now that in those days such scruples had not troubled
him. His inconsistency irritated him, and increased his irritation
against Gillow. "I suppose he thinks he owns us!" he grumbled inwardly.

He had thrown himself into an armchair, and Susy, advancing across the
shining arabesques of the floor, slid down at his feet, p