ively, "You have a cuckoo clock?"

Claire was thankful that her face was screened from view as she was in
the process of tying on her veil. A muffled, "Yes," was her only reply.

Janet stood in front of the clock, staring at it with curious eyes.

"It's--it's like--there were some just like this in a shop at Saint
Moritz."

"They are all much alike, don't you think?"

"I suppose they are. Yes--in a way. Some are much better than others.
This is one of the best--"

"Yes, it is. It keeps beautiful time. I had it in the sitting-room,
but Miss Rhodes objected to the noise."

"Was it in Saint Moritz that you bought it?"

"I didn't buy it. It was a present."

That finished the cross-questioning, since politeness forbade that Janet
should go a step further and ask the name of the friend, which was what
she was obviously longing to do. She stood a moment longer, staring
blankly at the clock, then gave a little sigh, and moved on to examine
the ornaments on the mantelpiece. Five minutes later the two girls
descended the staircase, and drove away from the door.

The next few hours passed pleasantly enough, but Claire wondered if it
were her own imagination which made her think that Janet's manner was
not quite so frank and bright as it had been before she had caught sight
of the cuckoo clock. She never again said, "Claire"; but her brown eyes
studied Claire's face with a wistful scrutiny, and from time to time a
sharp little sigh punctuated her sentences.

"But what could I tell her?" Claire asked unhappily of her sub-
conscience. "I don't _know_--I only think; and even if he _did_ send
it, it doesn't necessarily affect his feelings towards her. He was
going to see her in a few days; and she is rich and has everything she
wants, while I am poor and alone. It was just kindness, nothing more."
But though her head was satisfied with such reasoning, her heart, like
Janet's, refused to fall into line.

At tea-time several callers arrived, foremost among them a tall man whom
Claire at once recognised as the original of a portrait which stood
opposite to that of Captain Fanshawe on the mantelpiece of Janet's
boudoir. This was "the kind man, the thoughtful man," the man who
remembered "little things," and in truth he bore the mark of it in every
line of his good-humoured face. Apart from his expression, his
appearance was ordinary enough; but he was self-evidently a man to
trust, and Claire found something pa