n would have had the courage to wear, and the diamonds in
her hair, with their sharp points of radiating light, accentuated
something that was magnificent and almost defiant about Mrs. Ogilvie
to-night. Her short-sighted eyes contracted in their usual fashion as
she watched the couple disappear down the vista of the corridor. 'If
only it could be soon! If only their marriage could be soon!' she
murmured to herself, her lips moving in an inward cry that in another
woman might have been a prayer.

'How do you think she is looking?' said Peter, as, without conscious
intention, he and Jane drifted away from the dancers into a more
distant part of the house. 'Surely she gets tired too easily? I wish
she would see a doctor; but she hates being fussed over, and one can
never persuade her to take care of herself.'

'What is one to do with so wilful a woman?' said Jane.

They paused and looked at the dim crowd of dancers through one of the
entrances to the ballroom, and passed down the corridor where misty
figures sat on sofas and chairs enjoying the cool. Every one looked to
them misty and far away to-night, almost as though they had not
sufficiently materialized to be perfectly distinct.

With definite intention Peter led his partner towards a little room,
hung with miniatures and plaques, at the farther end of the long
corridor. Here they found Nigel Christopherson in conversation with
Miss Sherard. Kitty was talking as lightly as usual, deliberately
misunderstanding everything that was said to her, and being as
provoking as she ever was; and Toffy was so much in earnest that he did
not see Peter and Jane, but continued to talk to the girl beside him.
So the two intruders never entered the room at all; but, as they
pursued their way still farther, Peter was thinking about Mrs. Avory,
and wishing to goodness that Toffy had never met her.

The big house seemed too full of people for his taste to-night. Every
room and corridor was occupied, and Peter said, 'Let's go to my
mother's sitting-room. Do you mind, Jane? We can get cool on the
bridge.'

Bowshott is a very old house, so old that, if it had not been for
archaeologists, who came there sometimes and read the grey stones as
though they had been printed paper, no one would ever have known when
the earliest part of it was built. Antiquaries agreed that it dated
from Norman days; but the only portion of the building of that period
which was standing now was a