ving a
bit faster nowadays. Waltzes and Lancers were all very well, but one
might have had a cotillon, something unexpected! However, May Eversley
and one or two other girls had had the right kind of go about them. He
smiled a little and tugged at his short bristling yellow moustache, and
then discovered that it was time to take Rachel Beaminster down to
supper.

This event was of more than ordinary interest to him. He was perfectly
aware that most of his friends and relatives thought that it would be a
very good thing for him to marry Rachel Beaminster. He was, himself, not
scornful of this idea.

He was thirty-two, and it was time that Seddon Court in Sussex had a
mistress; his life had been varied and exciting and it was right now
that he should make some ties. There were a number of other reasons in
favour of his marrying.

As to Rachel Beaminster, she was not pretty, but she was interesting.
She was unusual; moreover she was a Beaminster, and an alliance with
that ancient family would be, past dispute, a magnificent alliance. But
the element in it all that intrigued him most was the fact that nobody
could tell him anything about Rachel, even May Eversley who knew her so
well was not sure about her. "You'll go on being surprised," she had
said.

Surprise, indeed, was waiting for him this evening. On the few occasions
that he had seen Rachel he had seen her grave, shy, a little awkward,
most reserved. Now she met him as though she had known him for years,
glowing, almost pretty, so burning were her eyes. At supper she laughed,
called across the room to May, agreed with everything that everybody
said, and with it all was younger than any girl that he had ever known.
The girls who were Roddy's friends talked about life at times more
boldly than he would have talked with his men friends, and were, at all
events, for ever hinting at the things that they knew.

Rachel hinted at nothing; she kept nothing back, she allowed him no
disguises.

"Oh! don't I wish," she cried, "that this night could go on for ever
just like this"--and he, taking the compliment to himself, agreed with
her. He had expected to find someone haughty and cold, a young Aunt
Adela with a dash of foreign temper.

He found someone entirely delightful. Afterwards, when they sat out on a
balcony overlooking Portland Place, he was encouraged to talk about
himself.

"I like all this, you know," he said, waving his hand at the grey
mysterious stree