hame, Sylvia; you'll bowl over everybody. Roy Beaumont
will say you look mythological. Oh, and poor Mr. Ridokanaki! You'll
refuse him to-night, I suppose! What fun it must be to be a pretty girl
going about refusing people in conservatories--like a short story in a
magazine! I've forgotten how I did it. In a year, darling? Quite. I say,
have I overdone the dix-huitieme business? Do I look like a fancy ball?
Pass me a hairpin, dear. No, don't. I suppose you know that Chetwode has
never seen this dress! What do you think of _that_? One would think we
were an old married couple."

"Hardly, dear. Put it on to go and meet him at the station," said
Sylvia, rather unpractically. "No, you're not too last-century. I think
you look more like the next."

"Well, I hope so," said Felicity, fluttering a tiny Pompadour fan; "and
if De Valdez says I look like a Marquise of the olden times, as he once
did, I simply won't stand it. Let's go down. But first tell me what you
will say when Mr. Rid ... Oh, bother, I can't say all that. Let us call
him the man. 'Miss Crofton, might I respectfully venture to presume to
propose to hope to ask to have a word with you? You are like a grey
rose', or something or other."

"Oh, don't be absurd. Sometimes I think the whole thing is all your
fancy, and Savile's."

"My fancy! Then what was that enormous, immense thing in the hall I fell
over--a sort of tin jewelled bath, crammed with orchids and carnations?
Frank Woodville was helping Price to cart it away, and trying to break
some of the flowers by accident."

"Oh, was Mr. Woodville taking it away?" Sylvia smiled.

At that moment a firm knock at the door, and the words, "I say, Sylvia,"
announced Savile's entrance. He walked in slowly, brushed his sisters
aside like flies, and stood looking at himself in the long mirror, which
reached nearly from the ceiling to the floor. It was a solemn moment.
He was wearing his very first evening-dress suit.

They watched him breathlessly. He carefully kept every trace of
expression out of his face. Then he sat down, and said seriously to
himself--

"Right as rain. You're all right, girls, too. Rather rot Chetwode not
being here. Rather a pose, Felicity not wearing jewels. Why is the
Governor in such a state? He's frightfully pleased about something. He
flew out at me and said I ought to work for my button-holes, as he did.
Really rather rot! I said, 'Well, father, a pink carnation's all right.
The King w