gether there was
sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable
noise. This, being the major's cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand
raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to
whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for
the ears of such a sex.

"Ass!" muttered Alderdene, getting up and pattering about the room in
his big, shiny pumps. "Give me a peg--somebody!"

Mortimer swallowed his brandy, lingered, lifted the decanter,
mechanically considering its remaining contents and his own capacity;
then:

"Bridge, Captain?"

"Certainly," said Captain Voucher briskly.

"I'll go and shoo the major into the gun-room," observed
Ferrall--"unless--" looking questioningly at Siward.

"I've a date with your wife," observed that young man, strolling toward
the hall.

The Page boys, Rena Bonnesdel, and Eileen Shannon were seated at a card
table together, very much engaged with one another, the sealed pack
lying neglected on the green cloth, a vast pink box of bon-bons beside
it, not neglected.

O'Hara and Quarrier with Marion Page and Mrs. Mortimer were immersed in
the game, already stony faced and oblivious to outer sounds.

About the rooms were distributed girls en tete-a-tete, girls eating
bon-bons and watching the cards--among them Sylvia Landis, hands loosely
clasped behind her, standing at Quarrier's elbow to observe and profit
by an expert performance.

As Siward strolled in she raised her dainty head for an instant, smiled
in silence, and resumed a study of her fiance's game.

A moment later, when Quarrier had emerged brilliantly from the melee,
she looked up again, triumphantly, supposing Siward was lingering
somewhere waiting to join her. And she was just a trifle surprised and
disappointed to find him nowhere in sight. She had wished him to observe
the brilliancy of Mr. Quarrier's game.

But Siward, outside on the veranda, was saying at that moment to his
hostess: "I shall be very glad to read my mother's letter at any time
you choose."

"It must be later, Stephen. I'm to cut in when Kemp sends for me. He has
a lot of letters to attend to. ... Tell me, what do you think of Sylvia
Landis?"

"I like her, of course," he replied pleasantly.

Grace Ferrall stood thinking a moment: "That sketch you made proved a
great success, didn't it?" And she laughed under her breath.

"Did it? I thought Mr. Quarrier seemed annoyed--"