eappeared.

"Please, sir--a lady to see you."

"What!"

Jimmy stared incredulously. "A lady to see me? Rot! It's some
mistake----"

"No, sir, begging your pardon, sir," said Costin stolidly. "It's--if
you please, sir, it's Miss Farrow."

Jimmy stood immovable for a moment, then he turned round slowly and
mechanically, almost as if someone had taken him by his shoulders and
forced him to do so.

"Miss--Farrow!" he echoed Costin's apologetic utterance of Cynthia's
name expressionlessly. "Miss--Farrow . . ." The colour rushed from
his brow to chin; his heart began to race just as it used to in the old
days when he had called to see her, and was waiting in her pink
drawing-room, listening to the sound of her coming steps on the landing
outside. After a moment:

"Ask--ask her to come in," he said.

He turned back to the mirror; mechanically he passed a hand over the
refractory kink in his hair; he looked at his tie with critical eyes;
he wished there had been time to shave, he wished--and then he forgot
to wish anything more at all, for the door had opened, and Cynthia
herself stood there.

She was beautifully dressed; he realised in a vague sort of way that
she had never looked more desirable, and yet for the life of him he
could not have told what she was wearing, except that there was a big
bunch of lilies tucked into the bosom of her gown.

She held out her hands to him; she was smiling adorably.

"Jimmy," she said.

Jimmy's first wild instinct was to rush forward and take her in his
arms; then he remembered. He backed away from her a step; he began to
tremble.

"What--what have you come here for?" he stammered.

She laughed.

"Jimmy, how rude! You don't look a bit pleased to see me. You--oh,
Jimmy, I thought you'd be so happy--so delighted."

She came across to him now; she slipped a hand through his arm; she
leaned her cheek against his coat-sleeve; the scent of the lilies she
wore mounted intoxicatingly to his head.

He tried not to look at her--he tried to stiffen his arm beneath her
cheek; but his heart was thumping--he felt as if he were choking.

There was a moment of silence, then she looked up at him with a little
spark of wonderment in her eyes.

"You're not going to forgive me--is that it?" she asked blankly.

She moved away from him; she stood just in front of him, looking into
his face with the witching eyes he knew so well.

He would not look at her; he stared steadily