bout Ronnie Storre's music, Canon," said the
Duchess; "I consider it just perfectly glorious."

"It's a great talent, isn't it, Canon," put in Joan briskly, "and of
course it's a responsibility as well, don't you think? Music can be such
an influence, just as eloquence can; don't you agree with me?"

The quarry of the English language was of course a public property, but
it was disconcerting to have one's own particular barrow-load of sentence-
building material carried off before one's eyes. The Canon's impressive
homily on Ronnie's gift and its possibilities had to be hastily whittled
down to a weakly acquiescent, "Quite so, quite so."

"Have you tasted this iced mulberry salad, Canon?" asked the Duchess;
"it's perfectly luscious. Just hurry along and get some before it's all
gone."

And her Grace hurried along in an opposite direction, to thank Cicely for
past favours and to express lively gratitude for the Tuesday to come.

The guests departed, with a rather irritating slowness, for which perhaps
the excellence of Cicely's buffet arrangements was partly responsible.
The great drawing-room seemed to grow larger and more oppressive as the
human wave receded, and the hostess fled at last with some relief to the
narrower limits of her writing-room and the sedative influences of a
cigarette. She was inclined to be sorry for herself; the triumph of the
afternoon had turned out much as she had predicted at lunch time. Her
idol of onyx had not been swept from its pedestal, but the pedestal
itself had an air of being packed up ready for transport to some other
temple. Ronnie would be flattered and spoiled by half a hundred people,
just because he could conjure sounds out of a keyboard, and Cicely felt
no great incentive to go on flattering and spoiling him herself. And
Ronnie would acquiesce in his dismissal with the good grace born of
indifference--the surest guarantor of perfect manners. Already he had
social engagements for the coming months in which she had no share; the
drifting apart would be mutual. He had been an intelligent and amusing
companion, and he had played the game as she had wished it to be played,
without the fatigue of keeping up pretences which neither of them could
have believed in. "Let us have a wonderfully good time together" had
been the single stipulation in their unwritten treaty of comradeship, and
they had had the good time. Their whole-hearted pursuit of material
happiness would