was utterly serene; there was no
movement save the stir of Priscilla among her papers. All silent and all
damned, Denis repeated to himself, all silent and all damned...

It was nearly an hour later when Ivor and Mary made their appearance.

"We waited to see the moon rise," said Ivor.

"It was gibbous, you know," Mary explained, very technical and
scientific.

"It was so beautiful down in the garden! The trees, the scent of the
flowers, the stars..." Ivor waved his arms. "And when the moon came up,
it was really too much. It made me burst into tears." He sat down at the
piano and opened the lid.

"There were a great many meteorites," said Mary to anyone who would
listen. "The earth must just be coming into the summer shower of them.
In July and August..."

But Ivor had already begun to strike the keys. He played the garden,
the stars, the scent of flowers, the rising moon. He even put in a
nightingale that was not there. Mary looked on and listened with parted
lips. The others pursued their occupations, without appearing to be
seriously disturbed. On this very July day, exactly three hundred and
fifty years ago, Sir Ferdinando had eaten seven dozen oysters. The
discovery of this fact gave Henry Wimbush a peculiar pleasure. He had
a natural piety which made him delight in the celebration of memorial
feasts. The three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the seven dozen
oysters...He wished he had known before dinner; he would have ordered
champagne.

On her way to bed Mary paid a call. The light was out in Anne's room,
but she was not yet asleep.

"Why didn't you come down to the garden with us?" Mary asked.

"I fell down and twisted my ankle. Denis helped me home."

Mary was full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find
Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely
suspicious, down there in the garden--suspicious of what, she hardly
knew; but there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way
she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of
course; far from it. But she didn't like the idea that perhaps she was
the victim of a put-up job.

"I do hope you'll be better to-morrow," she said, and she commiserated
with Anne on all she had missed--the garden, the stars, the scent of
flowers, the meteorites through whose summer shower the earth was now
passing, the rising moon and its gibbosity. And then they had had such
interesting conversation. Wh