nd Lady Locke
put her napkin down upon the cloth and got up. In performing this action
she left her hand on the table for an instant. Lord Reggie touched it
with his. She immediately drew her hand away, and her face reddened
slightly. But she said nothing, and went quietly out of the room.

Mrs. Windsor was outside speaking to one of the tall footmen. When she
saw her cousin she jingled her keys languidly and smiled.

"Good morning, darling," she said. "I am arranging about the choir
practice to-night. We are going to entertain all the dear little choir
boys to supper afterwards, and they will sing catches, and so on, so
delicious by moonlight. Mr. Amarinth has invented a new catch for them.
And on Monday the schoolchildren are coming to tea on the lawn, and
games. Mr. Amarinth says that charity always begins abroad, but one
couldn't have a school treat in Belgrave Square, could one? It would be
quite sacrilege, or bad form, which is worse. We must try and invent
some new games. You and Lord Reggie must put your heads together."

"Thank you, Betty," Lady Locke said, moving rather hastily on toward the
garden. Mrs. Windsor looked after her with the sudden sly suspicion of a
stupid woman who fancies she is being discerning and clever.

"Something has happened," she thought. "Can Reggie have said anything
already?"

She walked into the breakfast-room, where she found Lord Reggie alone.

He was holding up a table-spoon filled with marmalade to catch the light
from a stray sunbeam that filtered in through the drawn blinds, and wore
a rapt look, a "caught up" look, as Mrs. Windsor would have expressed
it.

"Good morning," he said softly. "Is not this marmalade Godlike? This
marvellous, clear, amber glow, amber with a touch of red in it, almost
makes me believe in an after life. Surely, surely marmalade can never
die!"

"I must have been mistaken," Mrs. Windsor thought, as she expressed her
sense of the eternity of jams in general in suitable language.

Meanwhile Lady Locke had gone into the garden. The weather was quite
perfect. England seemed to have made a special effort, and to have
determined to show what she could do in the way of a summer. The sky had
been well swept of clouds, and shimmered in the heat almost as if it had
been varnished. The garden was revelling in the growing luxury of
warmth. It never looked parched; Mrs. Windsor's gardeners were too agile
with the hose for that. The hundreds of roses were