dress. Tom says she looks a regular peach! That's his highest
form of praise, you know."

Radmore suddenly resolved to say something which had been on his mind of
late. "Don't you think that Jack's making rather a fool of himself over
that pretty little lady?"

Betty looked across at him with the frank, direct gaze that he remembered
so well. "I'm afraid he is," she answered. "He and Janet had quite a row
about her this morning. He seemed to think we had been rude to her; he
was most awfully huffy about it. But I suppose saying anything only makes
things worse in such a case, doesn't it?"

"I don't see why I shouldn't speak to _her_. She and I know each other
pretty well. She was a desperate little flirt when I first knew her in
Egypt." And then, as he saw a look cross her face to which he had no
clue, he added hastily:--"She's quite all right, Betty. She's quite a
straight little woman."

"I'm sure she is," said Betty cordially.

She was wondering, wondering, wondering what Godfrey really thought of
Enid Crofton? Whether or no there had been a touch of jealousy in what he
had said about Jack just now? He had said the words about Jack's making a
fool of himself very lightly. Still there had been a peculiar expression
on his face.

During the last fortnight, while doing the hundred and one things which
fell to her share, Betty had given the subject of Enid Crofton and
Godfrey Radmore a good deal of thought, while telling herself all the
time that, after all, it was none of her business--now.

All at once she became aware that Radmore was looking hard at her. "Look
here," he exclaimed, coming up close to where she was again engaged in
drying and polishing the heavy old crystal goblets. "I want to ask you
a favour, Betty. It's absurd that I should be here, with far more money
than I know what to do with, while the only people in the world I care
for, are all worried, anxious, and overworking themselves. Janet says
it's impossible to get a cook. What I want to do if you'll let me--" he
looked at her pleadingly, and Betty's heart began to beat: thus was he
wont to look at her in the old days, when he wanted to wheedle something
out of her.

"What I want to do," he went on eagerly, "is to go up to London to-morrow
morning and bring back a cook in triumph! Life has taught me _one_
thing,--that is that money can procure anything." As she remained silent,
he added in a tone of relief, "There, that's settled! You go up t