make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS
unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tell anyone.'

"'I will,' said George brutally. 'I'll tell everyone, unless...'

"'It's blackmail.'

"'I don't care, said George. 'I'll give you twenty-four hours to
decide.'

"Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better
things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn't so bad.
They were married at the New Year.

"My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and
put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed
nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his cigar. "It was
a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no
representative institutions."

Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor's
whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible.
Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up.

"What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to
consciousness; "what?"

Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly.
"It's about a ham," she said.

"What's about a ham?"

"What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lying on
her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I'm going to bed," she
announced, and got up.

"So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from
her arm-chair.

The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains
hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral
Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath.

"The air's like wool," he declared.

"It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously
added, "perhaps."

"I shan't sleep, I know."

Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure
nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You must make an
effort," she said. "When I can't sleep, I concentrate my will: I say,
'I will sleep, I am asleep!' And pop! off I go. That's the power of
thought."

"But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simply cannot
sleep on a stuffy night."

"Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors."

"Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decided to sleep
on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There
was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a
mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the star