"Yes, very fairly happy," said Savile. "And mind you have that powder
all brushed out of your hair. I don't like it."

They walked to the gate.

"I really have missed you awfully, dear," said Savile gently.

"You have your faults, Savile, but you are reliable, I _will_ say that."

"Rather," said Savile. "I'll bring you a ring this afternoon or
to-morrow."

"What! How lovely! But I shan't be allowed to wear it."

"Then keep it till you can."

"It's very sweet of you. Good-bye, Savile."

"Good-bye, dear. I say, Dolly?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing!"

CHAPTER XXII

SAVILE AND JASMYN

Savile had written asking Jasmyn Vere to see him on a matter of
importance.

Jasmyn promptly and courteously made an appointment, and spent the
intervening hours chuckling to himself at the solemn tone of the letter,
and wondering what in Heaven's name the child could possibly want.

He received Savile in a kind of winter garden, or conservatory at the
back of his house, and went to meet him with the most charming
cordiality, to put the boy at his ease. He would have been rather
surprised had he known that something about his reddish hair, and his
mouth open with hospitable welcome against the green background,
reminded the boy irresistibly of an amiable gold-fish.

"So delighted, dear boy, that you should have thought of me. Anything,
of course, in the world that I could do for you, or for any of your
charming family, I should look upon as a real privilege. Have a
cigarette? You smoke, of course? You oughtn't to. Take this nice
comfortable chair--not that one, it's horrid--and tell me all about it."

"Thanks, awfully," said Savile seriously, intensely amused at his host's
nervous, elaborate politeness, and trying hard to repress the
inclination to laugh that Jasmyn always inspired in him. How fluttered
and flattered the dear old thing seemed! Savile wasn't a bit frightened
of him.

"I knew you know all about things, Mr. Vere," said Savile, accepting a
cigarette and a cushioned deck-chair, "and I thought I'd ask your advice
about something."

Jasmyn was completely at a loss. Could it be a question of a tenner? It
so often was. But no, he felt sure that it was nothing quite so
commonplace, or quite so simple.

In a few minutes he had heard and thoroughly taken in the whole story.

He was most interested, and particularly sympathetic about Sylvia,
though from his own point of view--the worldly social-conventional