instance. When I
was a child I always thought of him as a sort of fairy godmother--a
person who was always dropping from the clouds to take one for
drives in the country, or with a box for the pantomime."

Eve laughed at herself, and then sighed. Mary looked at her
curiously for a moment, finding something cold, a trace of weariness
or disdain in the clear voice and the pretty, childish face.

"Philip was always like that, the kindest---- He has always been
quite a hero for me--a kind of Colonel Newcome." Then she broke off
rather suddenly, finding Eve in turn looking at her inquiringly.
"Isn't it curious that we should both have known him so long without
knowing each other?"

"I suppose it was because we all lived so much abroad. And I don't
think Philip talks about his friends very much...."

Lady Garnett interrupted the _tete-a-tete_ conversation at this point,
and when her little brougham had rolled away, and a few other late
guests had left Eve alone with her husband, she sat for a few
minutes in the deserted drawing-room, among a wilderness of empty
chairs, meditating, with her chin resting on one hand, and her eyes
absently contemplating the scattered petals of a copper-coloured
rose, which had fallen from some dress or bouquet upon one of the
Oriental rugs which partly covered the parquet floor.

"Dick," she said presently to her husband, who was leaning against
the rails of the veranda, lazily enjoying a final cigarette, "did it
ever strike you that Philip Rainham was in love with anybody?"

Lightmark turned and gazed at her through the open window
wonderingly, almost suspiciously, and then broke into a laugh.

"Or that anyone was in love with him?" she pursued gravely.

"I don't think I ever noticed it," he answered, with another display
of mirth. "What have you discovered now, little matchmaker?"

"Not much. I was only thinking.... What a pity Charles wasn't here
to-night!"

"Oh, you little enigma! Is it that dear Charles who is to be pitied,
or who? We, for instance?"

But Eve assumed a superior air, and Lightmark, who hated riddles,
dismissed the subject and the end of his cigarette simultaneously.

CHAPTER XXII

One afternoon, three months later, Rainham, finding himself in the
neighbourhood of Parton Street, took the occasion of knocking at
Lady Garnett's door, and found, somewhat to his surprise, that the
two ladies were returned. Introduced into their presence--they were
sitting i