OUDOIR
20. PAGET GARDENS
21. JANE
22. THE DETECTIVE
23. THE BLUE CITY
24. THE SPATTS
25. THE MUTE
26. NOCTURNE
27. IN THE GARDEN
28. ENCOUNTER
29. FLIGHT
30. ARIADNE
31. THE NOSTRUM
32. BY THE BINNACLE
33. AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
34. THE TANK-ROOM
35. THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
36. IN THE DINGHY
37. AFLOAT
38. IN THE UNIVERSE
39. THE IMMINENT DRIVE
40. GENIUS AT BAY
41. FINANCIAL NEWS
42. INTERVAL
43. ENTR'ACTE
44. END OF THE CONCERT
45. STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
46. AN EPILOGUE

CHAPTER I

MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT

Audrey had just closed the safe in her father's study when she was startled
by a slight noise. She turned like a defensive animal to face danger. It
had indeed occurred to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity,
and she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not at all
original.

"And Flank Hall is my Zoo!" she had said. (Not that she had ever seen the
Zoological Gardens or visited London.)

She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain blue serge
walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs and left them free, and it
made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures
and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least
interest in it--almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations
caused by the paraphernalia of existence. She scarcely knew what it was to
own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond these her
possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest from the
authorities earthly or celestial.

The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had
distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched
itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.

Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon.
She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond
the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of
disdain. All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."

And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was
greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she was plain, she had not elegance;
her accent and turns of speech were not