we'll take Carpenter,' Milly suggested. 'I'll run and tell
him to put his overcoat on and put the back-seat in.' And she scampered
off.

Twemlow was fondling the dog with an air of detachment.

In the fraction of an instant, a thousand wild and disturbing thoughts
swept through Leonora's brain. Was it possible that Arthur Twemlow had
suggested this change of plan to the girls? Or had the girls already
noticed with the keen eyes of youth that she and Arthur Twemlow enjoyed
each other's society, and naively wished to give her pleasure? Would
Arthur Twemlow, but for the accidental encounter on the Marsh, have
passed by her home without calling? If she remained, what conclusion
could not be drawn? If she persisted in going, might not he want to come
with her? She was ashamed of the preposterous inward turmoil.

'And my shopping?' she smiled, blushing.

'Give me the list, mater,' said Ethel, and took the morocco book out of
her hand.

Never before had Leonora felt so helpless in the sudden clutch of fate.
She knew she was a willing prey. She wished to remain, and politeness to
Arthur Twemlow demanded that this wish should not be disguised. Yet what
would she not have given even to have felt herself able to disguise it?

'How incredibly stupid I am!' she thought.

No sooner had the two girls departed than Twemlow began to laugh.

'I must tell you,' he said, with candid amusement, 'that this is a
plant. Those two daughters of yours calculated to leave you and me here
alone together.'

'Yes?' she murmured, still constrained.

'Miss Milly wants me to talk you round about her going in for the stage.
When I met them on the Marsh, of course I began to pay her compliments,
and I just happened to say I thought she was a born _comedienne_, and
before I knew it T was blindfolded, handcuffed, and carried off, so to
speak.'

This was the simple, innocent explanation! 'Oh, how incredibly stupid,
stupid, stupid, I was!' she thought again, and a feeling of exquisite
relief surged into her being. Mingled with that relief was the deep joy
of realising that Ethel and Milly fully shared her instinctive
predilection for Arthur Twemlow. Here indeed was the supreme security.

'I must say my daughters get more and more surprising every day,' she
remarked, impelled to offer some sort of conventional apology for her
children's unconventional behaviour.

'They are charming girls,' he said briefly.

On the surface of her profound relie