minute before I'd been trying to despise
Ivor, and to argue, just as if I'd been a match-making mamma, to myself
that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry
Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and
that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was
engaged to somebody else.

But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been
stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given
anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and
would trust him in spite of all.

"You look as pale as if you were going to faint," said Lisa, in her
little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn't speak loudly, always
reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms.

I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone's attention to me just
then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as
they passed.

"It must be the light," I said, "for I don't feel in the least faint."
That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that
minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on
beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was.
"I'm a little tired, though," I went on. "None of us got to bed till
after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has
been rather long. I think, if you don't mind, Aunt Lil, I'll go straight
to my room when we get upstairs."

We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others
at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric's suite.

"Shan't I come with you?" asked Lisa, but I said "no." It was something
new for her to offer to help me, for she isn't very strong, and has
always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she's a
few years older than I am.

Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can't get on even for
a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had
offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn't been shut up
in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she
could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away.

I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking
along the Champs Elysees, brilliant still with electric lights, and full
of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and
dinner-parties, or taking them to res