strokin' it--not hammerin' it. I don't care what the old
tune is----"

Rachel laughed a little, but said nothing. Of course, she thought him
the most thundering kind of fool, and this made him eager to display to
her his wisdom and common sense.

But he could say nothing. There followed the most awkward silence. She
did not try to help him, but sat there quietly looking in front of her.

Suddenly she said: "Uncle Richard, I want to see your fans again. I
haven't seen them for a long time. I know you've added some lately. Sir
Roderick, have you ever seen my uncle's fans?"

"No," he said. "I'd be delighted----"

Lord Richard's eyes lifted. The lines of his mouth grew softer.

Rachel watched him. "Now he'll pretend," she said, "that he doesn't
care. He'll pretend that they're nothing to him at all."

He went, in his solemn guarded manner, to a place in the room where a
large cabinet was let into the wall. He drew this cabinet forward, and
then, out of it, moving his hands almost pontifically, he pulled trays,
and on these trays lay the fans.

The others had gathered around him. There were nearly five hundred
fans--fans Dutch and Italian and French and Chinese and Japanese; fans
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the eighteenth and of the
Empire--modern Japanese heavy with iron spokes, others light as
gossamer, with spokes of ivory or tortoise shell. There were French
fans, painted only on one side, with pictures of fantastic shepherds and
shepherdesses; there were Chinese fans with bridges and mandarins and
towers; Empire fans perforated with tinsel and such lovely shades of
colour that they seemed to change as one gazed.

There they all lay in that rich solemn room, quietly, proudly conscious
of their beauty, needing no word of praise, catching all the colour and
the daintiness and fragrance that had ever been in the world.

Rachel drank in their splendour and then looked about her.

Uncle Richard's eyes were flaming and his hands trembling against the
case.

Then she looked at Roddy Seddon. His head was flung back; with eyes and
mouth, with every vein, and fibre of his body he was drinking in their
glory.

His eyes were suddenly caught away. He was staring at her before she
looked away--Her eyes said to him, "Why! Do you care like _that_? Do
those things mean _that_ to you?"

She smiled across at him. They were in communion again as they had been
last night.

He was surprised that he should