"What is it?"

"Will you always be my despair?"

"Oh no; oh yes--I mean." Then she said, "There he is!"

There was a sound of cabs outside. Then the door opened and Savile came
in, while a voice outside with a slight drawl said, "Where are you,
Felicity?"

Felicity ran out of the room and shut the door.

"Extraordinary weather for the time of year," remarked Savile, with a
condescending air of putting Wilton at his ease. The young man was
smiling, rather uncomfortably for him.

"Very," he answered. "No, thanks," to Savile's hospitable offer of a
cigarette. "You've been travelling. How delightful."

"I've just come back with Chetwode from Yorkshire. By the way, you'll
excuse my sister for a few minutes. You know what these newly married
couples are!"

Bertie Wilton rose.

"Do I not? I should be more than grieved to intrude on anything so
sacred as a--shall I say--a home chat? Thanks very much. No, I won't
stay now. Ask Lady Chetwode to excuse me. I shall hope to have the
pleasure of meeting your brother-in-law here some time quite soon."

He took his leave very cordially, with his usual smiling courtesy,
Savile making no effort to detain him, and chuckling a little to himself
as he tried to fancy the language Wilton would probably use in the cab
on his way home. Then the boy, saying "Well, I've made that all right!"
went back to Onslow square.

CHAPTER XI

SAVILE AND SYLVIA

One gay irresponsible April afternoon Sir James and Woodville had gone
to the House, and Savile, thinking he might be useful as an escort,
strolled into Sylvia's boudoir. It was her favourite room, where she
received her intimate friends, played and sang, wrote letters, read
novels and poetry, and thought about Woodville. The scent from the lilac
in the vases seemed to harmonise with the chintz furniture, covered with
a design of large pink rosebuds and vivid green trellis-work; there was
a mandoline on the lacquered piano and old coloured prints on the walls;
books and music were scattered about in dainty disorder. Sylvia was
sitting on the sofa with her pretty fair head bent down and turned away.
She did not move when Savile came in, and he was shocked to see she was
crying.

Savile turned quite pale with horror. Young as he was, nature and
training had made all outward manifestations of emotion so contrary to
his traditions and mode of life, and it seemed so unlike Sylvia, that he
felt a kind of shame even more strongly