ned the corner of the house. It was
past that disillusioned moment which divides the day and night--still
and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac scent clinging on
the riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst out. Jon would be in
London by now; in the Park perhaps, crossing the Serpentine, thinking
of her! A little sound beside her made her turn her eyes; her father
was again tearing the paper in his hands. Fleur saw it was a cheque.

"I shan't sell him my Gauguin," he said. "I don't know what your aunt
and Imogen see in him."

"Or Mother."

"Your mother!" said Soames.

'Poor Father!' she thought. 'He never looks happy--not really happy. I
don't want to make him worse, but of course I shall have to, when Jon
comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!'

"I'm going to dress," she said.

In her room she had a fancy to put on her "freak" dress. It was of gold
tissue with little trousers of the same, tightly drawn in at the
ankles, a page's cape slung from the shoulders, little gold shoes, and
a gold-winged Mercury helmet; and all over her were tiny gold bells,
especially on the helmet; so that if she shook her head she pealed.
When she was dressed she felt quite sick because Jon could not see her;
it even seemed a pity that the sprightly young man Michael Mont would
not have a view. But the gong had sounded, and she went down.

She made a sensation in the drawing-room. Winifred thought it "Most
amusing." Imogen was enraptured. Jack Cardigan called it "stunning,"
"ripping," "topping," and "corking." Monsieur Profond, smiling with his
eyes, said: "That's a nice small dress!" Her mother, very handsome in
black, sat looking at her, and said nothing. It remained for her father
to apply the test of common sense. "What did you put on that thing for?
You're not going to dance."

Fleur spun round, and the bells pealed.

"Caprice!"

Soames stared at her, and, turning away, gave his arm to Winifred. Jack
Cardigan took her mother. Prosper Profond took Imogen. Fleur went in by
herself, with her bells jingling....

The "small" moon had soon dropped down, and May night had fallen soft
and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its scents the
billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and regrets of men and
women. Happy was Jack Cardigan who snored into Imogen's white shoulder,
fit as a flea; or Timothy in his "mausoleum," too old for anything but
baby's slumber. For so many lay awake, or