t that the pale lamps so mournfully guarded. "I like
this air comin' along from the park. I'm all for the open, Miss
Beaminster--horses and dogs and rushin' along with the wind at your
back. It's a rippin' little place I've got down in Sussex. I hope you'll
see it one day--old as anything, with jolly Roman roads and such hangin'
around, and the most spiffin' lot of gees. Look, the sun will be gettin'
above the houses soon. I've seen some sunrises in my day. You ought to
be on the Downs at night, Miss Beaminster."

Roddy was surprised at himself at the way that he was talking, but she
really looked quite beautiful there in the window with her dark hair and
her eyes and white dress.

"I can't tell you," she said, when it was time for them to part, "how
much all you say interests me. I love horses too, and I adore dogs----"

"I've got a dog I'd like you to have," he began. "It's a----"

"Oh no," she answered. "Aunt Adela would never let me keep one here.
Thank you all the same. But you'll let me come down to Seddon Court one
day, won't you?"

"Let you!" Roddy could find no words.

She flung one glance at the square, where the dawn was beginning, and
then was back in the ballroom again, dancing, dancing, dancing....

The sky was all pink above the roofs, and the birds were making a whirl
of chattering, when her bedroom received her again.

Her maid was sleepy but proud.

"They all say it's been a great success, Miss Rachel."

"Success!" She stood for a moment in the middle of the room with her
arms extended. "Oh! It's been glorious, glorious. I've never----"

She paused. Her arms fell to her sides--"Oh! Dr. Chris! Dr. Chris! He
never came--he said that he mightn't be able. It was the only thing that
was wrong"--Then more slowly, as she moved to her dressing-table--"And
all the last part I never missed him."

"Well, I dare say," said Lucy, standing behind Rachel's chair and
staring at the white face in the mirror, "that with his patients and the
rest he couldn't get away----"

"Oh! But I ought to have missed him," said Rachel, and afterwards, lying
in bed, sleepless with excitement, it was Dr. Christopher's face that
she saw.

CHAPTER VI

FANS

"Il est doux de sommeiller a l'ombre chaude, sur le tiede
oreiller d'un mal epicurisme et d'une intelligence ironique,
tres simple, assez curieuse, et prodigieusement indifferente,
au fond."

Romain Rolland.

I

On the afterno