e," she explained.

"Rather an unnecessary one, I should have thought, as you are so soon
to be married." Lady Gertrude spoke with her usual acid brevity. "It
certainly prevents our enjoying as much of your society as we should
wish."

Nan flushed scarlet at the implied slur on her behaviour as a guest in
the house, even though she recognised the injustice of it. An awkward
pause ensued. Isobel, having started the ball rolling, seemed content
to let things take their course without interference, while Roger's
shaggy brows drew together in a heavy frown--though whether he were
displeased by his mother's comment, or by Nan's having given her cause
for it, it was impossible to say.

"This afternoon, for instance," pursued Lady Gertrude, "Isobel and I
paid several calls in the neighbourhood, and in each case your absence
was a disappointment to our friends--very naturally."

"I--I'm sorry," stammered Nan. She found it utterly incomprehensible
that anyone should expect her to break off in the middle of an
afternoon's inspiration in order to pay a duty call upon some absolute
strangers--whose disappointment was probably solely due to baulked
curiosity concerning Roger's future wife.

Isobel laughed lightly and let fly one of her little two-edged shafts.

"I expect you think we're a lot of very commonplace people, Nan," she
commented. "Own up, now!" challengingly.

Lady Gertrude's eyes flashed like steel.

"Hardly that, I hope," she said coldly.

"Well, we're none of us in the least artistic," persisted her niece,
perfectly aware that her small thrusts were as irritating to Lady
Gertrude and Roger as the picador's darts to the bull in the arena.
"So of course we must appear rather Philistine compared with Nan's set
in London."

Roger levelled a keen glance at Nan. There was suppressed anger and a
searching, almost fierce enquiry in his eyes beneath which she shrank.
That imperious temper of his was not difficult to rouse, as she had
discovered on more than one occasion since she had come to Trenby Hall,
and she felt intensely annoyed with Isobel, who was apparently unable
to see that her ill-timed observations were goading the pride of both
Roger and his mother.

"Silence evidently gives consent," laughed Isobel, as Nan, absorbed in
her own reflections for the moment, vouchsafed no contradiction to her
last remark.

Nan met the other's mocking glance defiantly. With a sudden
wilfulness, born of the ince